Barack Obama: 2012 Campaign Issues

Where he stands

Budget/Deficit/Taxes

• Will focus on continuing to stimulate the economy by creating new jobs and investing in health care, education, energy, and infrastructure
• Increase alternative energy production, modernize and weatherize buildings and homes, expand broadband technology, and computerize the health care system. Obama has said these measures will create some 3.5 million jobs
• Supports the Making Home Affordable Modification program to prevent foreclosures and the Making Home Affordable Refinancing program to restructure loans to keep people in their homes
• Has demanded accountability and transparency from banks and other financial institutions
• Plans to create a financial regulatory system that makes executives in the financial market accountable for their actions and prevents fraud
• Will work to make the tax system more fair to working families and the middle class and eliminate loopholes that benefit the wealthy
• Has promised to simplify the tax code

Immigration

• Supports additional personnel, infrastructure, and technology on the border and at our ports of entry
• Believes it is impractical to deport the 12 million immigrants living in the U.S. and supports the Dream Act, which would allow children of immigrants who are in good standing with the law access to higher education
• Create a legal immigration system
• Increase the number of legal immigrants to keep families together and meet the demand for jobs that employers cannot fill
• Crack down on employers who hire undocumented immigrants
• Supports a system that allows undocumented immigrants who are in good standing to pay a fine, learn English, and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens

Energy/Environment

• Decrease the country's reliance on fossil fuels and increase use of renewable sources of energy. Obama says he will invest $150 billion over the next 10 years to develop new technology for the production of biofuels and renewable energy
• Would like to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050
• Says he would pursue clean coal technology to reduce the reliance on imported oil

Foreign Policy

Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

• Called for a two-state solution that should start with Israel's 1967 borders, with mutually agreed upon land swaps, as a guide to the formation of a Palestinian state
• Said the U.S. will veto Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas's request for statehood at the UN Security Council
• Has expressed U.S. commitment to Israel's security.
• Obama the U.S. will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, but has warned of "too much loose talk of war." He does not support a policy of containment for Iran.
• Announced that U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
• The president has made reducing the number of nuclear weapons a primary goal, with a focus on keeping such weapons out of the hands of terrorists.

Same-sex Marriage

• Supported the repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell"

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