Obama’s score at halftime: 17 promises kept, 2 broken

In his first 50 days, President Obama has made progress on a wide range of campaign promises covering everything from sending

troops to Afghanistan

to

removing trees and brush

that cause wildfires.

PolitiFact has rated 17 of them

Promise Kept

and another seven as a

Compromise

. We’ve scored two as

Promise Broken

and two others as

Stalled

.

Although Obama ran into opposition from Republicans on the big economic stimulus package, Democrats muscled the bill through Congress and allowed Obama to fulfill some of his promises on taxes and energy. He’s also moved swiftly to use his 2010 budget proposal to advance many other promises, such as

extending the Bush tax cuts

for people who earn less than $200,000 and

increasing the size of the foreign service

.

Some other observations about his progress at the 50-day mark (which falls on Tuesday, March 10):

• He’s gotten the low-hanging fruit of campaign promises. Nine of the 17 we’ve rated as Promises Kept did not require congressional approval and were accomplished through executive orders or simple presidential directives.

• For his biggest promises, he has a mixed record. Of the ones on

our Top 10 list

, we’ve rated four In the Works, one Kept (Create foreclosure fund for homeowners), and one Compromise (Create $500 tax credit for workers). The other four are rated No Action.

• We’ve rated 38 promises

In the Works

, including many from his 2010 budget outline, which came out Feb. 26. He addressed dozens of his promises in that budget (including many that we haven’t had time to rate yet), but we put them In the Works because they need approval from Congress.

• He’s on track to keep one of our most closely watched promises:

adopting a dog for his daughters

. First lady Michelle Obama said the dog — likely to be a Portuguese Water Dog —  will probably arrive next month.

But Obama won’t always find it this easy. He’s got some more promises that he can fulfill unilaterally — such as the creation of new agencies or special advisers on specific topics — but for many of the promises, especially the big ones, Obama will have to persuade Congress to go along.