Checking in on tough campaign promises

By Angie Drobnic Holan, Lukas Pleva
Published on Thursday, September 16th, 2010 at 10:11 a.m.

Related campaign promises:

Enforce pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) budget rules | Details
End the abuse of supplemental budgets for war | Details
End the use of extreme rendition | Details
Close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center | Details

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President Barack Obama speaks at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute's awards gala on Sept. 15, 2010.

We're regularly checking the progress of more than 500 of President Barack Obama's campaign promises as we continue work on our award-winning Obameter campaign promises database. One thing we noticed about a recent group of updates: All the promises we checked were thorny issues, from handling terror suspects to how we fund wars to enforcing fiscal discipline.

Here's how Obama did in our recent group of ratings. Check the individual updates for more details and complete sources.

• We gave a Promise Kept to his promise to end the abuse of supplemental budgets for war. We report on how Obama used supplemental budgets for the war in Afghanistan, and why it doesn't constitute "abuse."

• We moved the meter from In the Works to Stalled on a promise to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center. Congress has thrown up some road blocks in the way of the administration's plans.

• We leave the meter at In the Works for ending the use of extreme rendition for terror suspects. We interviewed several experts on terrorism and human rights about the latest developments.

• We leave the meter at Stalled for Obama's promise to enforce PAYGO rules, and explain the many exceptions lawmakers have used to waive the rules.