President Barack Obama's Economic Promises

Promise Honored Extend unemployment insurance benefits and temporarily suspend taxes on these benefits (Comments)
"Obama and Biden believe Congress should immediately extend unemployment insurance for an additional 13 weeks to help families that are being hit hardest by this downturn. In addition, they believe we should temporarily suspend taxes on unemployment insurance benefits as a way of giving more relief to families." — Change.gov Agenda - The Economy

Promise Broken Allow Penalty-free Hardship Withdrawals from Retirement Accounts in 2008 and 2009 (Comments)
"Obama and Biden are calling for legislation that would allow withdrawals of 15% up to $10,000 from retirement accounts without penalty (although subject to the normal taxes). This would apply to withdrawals in 2008 (including retroactively) and 2009." — Change.gov Agenda - The Economy

Insist that trade agreements include labor and environmental standards (Comments)
"I will not sign any trade agreement as president that does not have protections for our environment and protections for American workers." — 2/24/08, Lorain, Ohio

Increase regulation of financial industry (Comments)
"I'll put in place the common-sense regulations and rules of the road I've been calling for since March — rules that will keep our market free, fair, and honest; rules that will restore accountability and responsibility in our corporate boardrooms." — 10/9/08, Dayton, Ohio

Improve options for displaced workers (Comments)
"Obama and Biden will also modernize and expand the existing system of trade adjustment assistance to include workers hurt by changing trade patterns. They will also create flexible education accounts that workers can use to retrain. And they will fully fund apprenticeship programs to help workers get credentials and skills in crafts that reward that investment with a middle class income and benefits." — BarackObama.com

A strong advocate for a free and open market (Comments)
"I will always be a strong advocate for a market that is free and open." — 9/17/07, New York City

Institute consumer credit card protections (Comments)
"I'll institute a five-star rating system to inform consumers about the level of risk involved in every credit card. And we'll establish a credit card bill of rights that will ban unilateral changes to a credit card agreement, ban rate changes to debt that's already incurred and ban interest fees on late fees." — 11/7/07, Bettendorf, Iowa

Reform bankruptcy laws for working people (Comments)
"Obama will reform our bankruptcy laws to protect working people, ban executive bonuses for bankrupt companies and require disclosure of all pension investments." — Obama's Blueprint for Change

"We'll make sure that if you can demonstrate that you went bankrupt because of medical expenses, then you can relieve that debt and get back on your feet." — 2/13/07, Janesville, Wis.

Help community and small business development agencies (Comments)
"Obama will provide additional resources to the federal Community Development Financial Institution Fund, the Small Business Administration and other federal agencies, especially to their local branch offices, to address community needs." — Obama's Blueprint for Change

Increase Transparency For Pension Investments (Comments)
"Obama will … require disclosure of all pension investments." — Obama's Blueprint for Change

Prohibit Bonuses For Failed Execs (Comments)
"Obama will … ban executive bonuses for bankrupt companies." — Obama's Blueprint for Change

If you know of other promises regarding the economy,

please add them to comments.

Add a New Comment
or Sign in as Wikidot user
(will not be published)
- +
spacer-50.gif
Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License