It’s been a year since “change” was promised. 365 days, give or take, since we flooded the polls with record numbers and voted our way into the history books. We elected our first African-American president; and for a while there, that was the focus: he’s Black, and that was scandalous enough to talk about for a while.

Over the past year, however, the focus of America’s minds and media have shifted from focusing on the color of his skin, to determining if there’s any backing behind all of his claims of “change” and “hope”. Has Obama delivered on his promises?

The simple answer is no. Obama has yet to deliver on most of his lofty promises for reform,
justice, and forward progress.

Then again, only the most critical observer would expect him to have fulfilled anything other than what he already has after only a year in office (out of four). He hasn’t been afforded much time to pull this great country of ours out of eight long years of dilapidation.

That is not to say, however, that progress isn’t evident.

Obama has made several major promises to the people of America; to those who supported him blindly, those who honestly saw him as the superior candidate, and to the Republicans.
He promised to help homeowners prevent foreclosure with a new foreclosure fund that would weed out the applicants who didn’t really need the assistance. The plan’s cost was originally $10B, but had to be upped to $75B due to the worsening of the home market during and after his campaign.

The Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) as its called, has made very limited progress in halting foreclosures, which could be attributed to the continued collapse of the housing market well before HAMP was initiated.

On another note, taxes have always been a popular subject for the common voter, as middle- or lower-class citizens constantly perturbed by the tax breaks for the rich, and tax increases for everyone else. Obama pledged to change that, giving tax credits to middle-class workers, and repealing the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy.

Presently, Congress has had a hand in shortchanging that promise from Obama’s proposed $500 bonus for middle-class workers to just $400 in February, in order to lower the overall cost of the program to $116.2B.

Healthcare has been another issue altogether, not only taking months to pass through each branch of Congress, but the whole “public option” fiasco has created a political firestorm, (further) dividing Democrats and Republicans within the House and Senate, with many going as far as to practically demonize the very thought of “Obamacare”, or any major reform.

Healthcare is really all we ever talk about anymore concerning Obama’s promises, and as the proposed healthcare bills are hardly ever agreed on, it’s successfully holding up everything else the White House needs to get done before Barack’s four years are up. But I won’t blame Congress for a lack of progress, as they’re doing what they’re paid to do, and there’s no sin in that (we hope).

Outside of pledges Obama has made to the voters, the war has been an issue of focus from day one, carrying over from the previous administration.

Obama did make a somewhat loose pledge to send “two additional brigades” to Afghanistan, which he recently pulled through on. Obviously many voters/politicians weren’t listening too closely to this, as many are up in arms (no pun intended) about how we should send less troops or no troops at all to Afghan soil, as the issue is in Iraq.

Let us recall, however, that the issue of terrorism following the 9/11 attacks was never centered in Iraq, but Hussein’s antics during our surge into the Middle East drew us into their territory as well.

“One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq with the war on terror,” stated George Bush in 2006 television interview with Katie Couric.

Obama is simply bringing us back to where the ruckus actually started, and where we might actually make progress ending the threat of terrorism, for a change.

The simple fact is that Obama needs more time. He’s being a afforded the same four-year term as every other president in history, and yet it seems he’s expected to get so much done in an ungodly brief amount of time.

He’s a year in, and he hasn’t gotten quite everything done. We can either support him and be active in our government, or we can regress 250 years and hold tea parties to satisfy our personal, divisive goals.

When it boils right down to it, the (majority of the) GOP isn’t going to be satisfied with the progress of Obama’s administration whether he keeps his promises in a timely manner or not.
The political party divide has simply grown to deep for us to believe that there is any sort of understanding or true respect to be had for what Obama is trying to do, and more importantly, what he’s trying to undo.