By Richard Billies of AllThingsPoliticalToday.com

As we approach the President’s annual State of the Union message to the American people, Barack Obama’s unfulfilled promises need to be discussed. Many of the goals that he talked about in previous messages have gone undone. Many of his promises have melted away like the winter snows in the spring. Were they mere political posturings or did he indeed mean to fulfill them?

“State of the Union addresses are kind of like the foam rubber rocks they used on Star Trek — they look solid but aren’t,” said Jack Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College. “Presidents will talk about solving some policy problem, and then the bold language of the State of the Union address disappears into the messy reality of governing.”

Some of these promises were mere window-dressing, such as meeting with Congressional leaders on a monthly basis. If anything, this promise simply was an opportunity to appear bi-partisan rather than an actual reaching across party lines. In one of the most rancorous periods in Washington, few could envision this from ever happening.

Among Obama’s other failed goals was the elimination of subsidies to oil companies. He promised this in last year’s State of the Union speech and followed up with a letter in April asking for action on the proposal. It died there when the oil companies pushed back, pointing out that they needed the money in order to pay for exploration and drilling costs. Beyond May, there was little discussion of this issue. It was simply an idea that sounded great in a speech to the American people but was not worth the heavy lifting by the President.

Another big applause line was the replacement of the No Child Left Behind
law with a better alternative. This one sounded great in the speech. Who is against educating American children? Although not accomplished, this proposal has sparked a great deal of debate. From scrap it completely to a potential replacement proposal from Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Mike Enzi (R-WY), we may see changes to the law.

Another flashy proposal at last year’s State of the Union speech was making the tuition tax credit permanent. With the continuing economic crisis, neither the Congress nor the President had any appetite to pursue this proposal.

A very big proposal by the President was a total rewriting of the immigration system. This would have been a huge undertaking in terms of political capital and compromises. The Democrats in the Senate tried to partially change the laws with The Dream Act but the Republicans saw it as a purely political ploy to pick up immigrant votes without addressing some of the real issues. It appeared to many as simply another way of amnesty for lawbreakers.

The other major applause line was rewriting the United States Tax Code. This would have been a far bigger undertaking than all of the others that he put forward. The Republicans seemed willing but a number of other issues, such as the debt crisis and spending poisoned the well for any compromise action.

As in many of Obama’s promises, most of these were a combination of political optics or my-way-or-the-highway governance. All of these proposals sounded great when delivered to a packed house in Washington but the White House simply is either unwilling or unable to press them to fruition. This is a President who loves to campaign and posture but has little appetite for governing.

Richard Billies is founder and purveyor of  AllThingsPoliticalToday.com  and a frequent SNSPost contributor.  The opinions expressed in this article are those of Mr. Billies and not necessarily those of the SNSPost or its staff.