Free Republic

President Barack Obama kept one campaign pledge Wednesday afternoon and at the same time violated another when he signed into law the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which extends health care coverage to 11 million low-income children. The White House views the SCHIP legislation as a down payment on Obama’s pledge to provide universal health care by the end of his first term. The bill ran into some partisan resistance because it allows states for the first time to use federal money to cover children and pregnant women who are legal immigrants. But Obama’s 5 p.m. signing came barely three...

I hope it's as bad as it sounds.

To reduce bills rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them, Obama "will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days." One of President Obama's major campaign planks was making government more open and accountable. It's a reaction to a habit in Congress of rushing bills through the House and Senate without giving people much opportunity to know what the bills would do. Indeed, sometimes members of Congress don't even know what's in the bills. So...

PolitiFact has compiled about 500 promises that Barack Obama made during the campaign and is tracking their progress on our Obameter. We rate their status as: No Action, In the Works or Stalled. Once we find action is completed, we rate them Promise Kept, Compromise or Promise Broken.

In the 1992 Presidential campaign, candidate Bill Clinton mercilessly hammered President George H.W. Bush over his "broken promise." Bush had once famously said in a State of the Union, "Read my lips. No new taxes," only to be forced to raise taxes by a Democrat-controlled Congress. No single thing was more costly to Bush than his "broken promise." Well, Barack Obama is breaking a major promise before even being inaugurated. And an "I told you so" is fully warranted. On the campaign trail, Barack Obama repeatedly promised a 3,000 tax credit for American businesses hiring new full-time employees. But promises...

Bowing to widespread Democratic skepticism, President-elect Barack Obama will drop his bid to include a business tax break he once touted in the economic stimulus bill now taking shape on Capitol Hill, aides said last night. Obama suggested the $3,000-per-job credit last week as one of five individual and business tax incentives aimed at winning Republican support. He proposed $300 billion in tax relief in a bill that could reach $775 billion, and he resurrected the jobs-credit proposal from the campaign trail as one of his main provisions. (snip) "We've always said we're open to other ideas. This was never...

I'm Surprised to see this up to almost 1300 diggs so far. It links to a critical commentary by CNN's Cambell Brown of Obama breaking his pledge to accept public campaign financing. It looks like conservatives are making a presence known on Digg.

Politics wasn't invented to be clean, positive and reassuring. It was invented so that one group could beat the holy hell out of another. To do that, they need money. Lots of it. All told, candidates for the presidency have raised more than $1.5 billion since January 2007. This staggering sum is bound to arouse dismay in all high-minded people. And remember, we're not even counting those "independent" advocacy groups that are dredging the swamp for votes. But before we get all moralistic about the state of the union, let's put these numbers in perspective. Americans spend around $8 billion...