Top 5: Nearly Impossible Campaign Promises
Maybe not impossible, but these campaign promises would be difficult to deliver.
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Politicians say a lot of things to get elected and some of them are nearly impossible to accomplish. Here are the Top 5 promises by Republican presidential candidates that have little or no chance of coming to pass.
quicklist: 1category: Michele Bachmanntitle: $2 Gasurl: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/oil-prices-important-michele-bachmann-american-politics/story?id=14389388text:
Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann promised that if elected, she'd do everything in her power to bring back $2 gasoline. Prices are currently between $3 and $4 a gallon nationwide. During a Republican presidential debate, Bachmann said that when President Obama took office, gas cost about $1.79 per gallon. Bachmann could seek to repeal the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and she could open up more federal lands to drilling and it still might not bring gas prices to those levels. Gas prices are linked to the price of oil, which is largely controlled by the global oil market and OPEC.
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quicklist: 2category: Herman Caintitle: Not Sign Any Bill Longer Than 3 Pagesurl: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/jon-stewart-fox-news-make-fun-herman-cain/story?id=13965885text:
Herman Cain is all about simplicity. He's a businessman, not a politician. And the former Godfathers' Pizza CEO wants to bring a business-like atmosphere to Washington. He has a three-pronged economic plan that would cut corporate and personal tax rates to 9 percent. He said, early in the campaign, that he wouldn't sign any bill longer than three pages.
Cain was mocked on late-night TV for the promise, which he later called "an exaggeraton."
"I was trying to drive home the point I will only sign clean bills, bills without earmarks, and bills the American people can understand," he told Glenn Beck on Fox News.
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quicklist: 3category: The Entire Republican Fieldtitle: Repeal "Obamacare"url:http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-health-care-laws-anniversary-progress-provisions/story?id=13188849text:
To a person, Republican presidential candidates have stated their goal to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the current president's signature legislative accomplishment, which opponents call "Obamacare."
The popularity of the law is still not over 50 percent more than one year after its passage, and it's several years from when most of the measures kick in. But while Republican candidates have all said they would repeal the law, it would be quite difficult to actually do. As Michelle Bachmann has pointed out, Republicans would likely need a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate to repeal the entire law. And that would require 13 new Republican senators - a real stretch even if Republicans do extremely well in the coming elections.
There would be ways to gut the law, by starving it of funds, but it would sill be a law.
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quicklist: 4category: Mitt Romneytitle: Create 11.5 Million Jobs in 4 yearsurl: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/09/romney-promises-11-5-million-jobs-could-he-really-deliver/text:
In normal times, creating 11.5 million jobs in four years would not be such a tall order. Bill Clinton did it. And Ronald Reagan came close. Or at least that many jobs were created during their first terms. But the recession has been deep and long-lasting. President Obama's policies helped create more than 2 million jobs, but unemployment increased at the same time.
To create 11.5 million jobs in four years, Romney's policies - in his case cutting corporate tax rates and rolling back regulations - would have to create 240,000 jobs per month. That is not an extremely tall order in normal economic times. But the downturn has been so long and protracted that it would be hard to guarantee. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office predicts job growth at much lower rate.
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quicklist: 5category: Ron Paultitle: Bring the Troops Homeurl: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/06/ron-paul-nothing-for-us-to-be-gained-by-leaving-troops-in-afghanistan/text:
Texas Rep. Ron Paul wouldn't bring some troops home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He'd bring them all, he says. And he wouldn't stop there. He'd end U.S. military engagements across the globe.
That would be a long and hard process. There are currently 256,000 American servicemembers overseas in more than a dozen countries. Some of those are on the front lines in Afghanistan, while others are in peace-keeping roles sponsored by the U.N. Still others are in long-term U.S. bases left over from previous engagements and dictated by treaties. There are troops in Germany and Korea and Japan. Paul would likely find himself on a collision course with Congress.
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