The Biden administration is moving ahead aggressively on an ambitious agenda, leveraging the goodwill they have after winning an election.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN wants to undo the vast majority of what his predecessor spent four years getting into place, plus pass sweeping immigration overhaul and a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan, all while getting the pandemic under control.
It’s a tall order for the new president’s first 100 days, a traditionally busy time for presidents eager to exploit whatever goodwill they have after winning an election. But the Biden administration – even after a transition the president complains was unusually uncooperative – is moving ahead aggressively.
Much of what Biden wants to do can be done through executive order or directives to federal agencies, and the president got right on the task after he took the oath of office Wednesday.
Even before the first and second couples celebrated their new jobs, Biden signed an order lifting the ban on travel from several mostly-Muslim countries, rejoined the World Health Organization and the Paris climate agreement, stopped construction of the border wall and expanded protections for LGBTQ people.
Other orders Biden signed in his first day on the job include extending a moratorium on evictions for certain renters, extending a freeze on federal student loan payments and protecting from deportation qualified immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children.
With a goal of getting 100 million vaccines into Americans’ arms in the first 100 days, Biden signed a dozen orders Wednesday aimed at increasing the number of available vaccines as well as the number of people who can administer them. The president is invoking the Defense Production Act to ramp up vaccine production and distribution.
Biden was able to make so many changes so quickly because of the precedent set by his predecessor, Donald Trump, says University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Kenneth Mayer, author of the book “With the Stroke of a Pen: Executive Orders and Presidential Power.”
“Every president looks for ways to use the powers of the office to accomplish their goals, and Trump was unusually aggressive about it, finding things that really broke the norms,” such as declaring a national emergency on the border to redirect money to build a wall Congress refused to fund, he said.
“One of the disadvantages of unilateral action is that it is usually not a one-way door,” Mayer adds. “Almost anything you can do unilaterally can be undone unilaterally.”
Mayer said that, according to his count, Biden by Thursday morning had reversed 20 Trump executive orders, restored two Obama executive orders, reinstated 12 regulations that had been rescinded or put on hold and revoked three presidential memos and five proclamations.
Biden will have a harder time, however, with elements of his 100 days agenda that require congressional approval. Also Read: PHOTOS & VIDEO: Images of the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
Biden on Day One offered a sweeping immigration reform package that provides a path to citizenship for immigrants in the United States illegally and offers aid to Central America, a proposal aimed at reducing the influx of people fleeing nations in that region. The measure would also increase border security through technology instead of the physical wall Trump wanted.
The president is also proposing a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, including additional $1,400 payments to eligible people, expanded unemployment insurance payments, rental payment relief, food and child care aid and small business assistance.
Republicans on Capitol Hill are already slamming both packages: The immigration measure, they say, wrongly provides “amnesty” to people who broke the law while not doing enough to secure the border. The COVID-19 relief measure, coming quickly after Congress passed a $900 million relief bill in the lame-duck days of the Trump administration, has also been criticized by Hill Republicans as too expensive.
Other plans for the first 100 days include addressing criminal justice reform, including creating a national police oversight commission, and changing the tax code, partly by raising corporate tax rates to 28%. Those priorities were listed by the Biden campaign as 100-day goals, but the White House has not provided more specific timing for them.
Biden pushed back Thursday when a reporter asked him if 100 million vaccines in 100 days would be enough.
“When I announced it, you all said it’s not possible. Come on, give me a break, man,” Biden said after he signed Thursday’s pile of executive orders.
Biden will have a Democratic-run Congress to help him, but the party has very narrow majorities in both chambers of Congress. The Senate, especially, could be problematic, with Republican Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky balking at approving the “organizing resolution” that will allow the new majority leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, to name committee chairmen. McConnell is seeking assurances that Democrats won’t try to get rid of the filibuster – meaning Republicans could easily thwart Biden’s legislative agenda.
Biden “does not owe his election to the far left,” McConnel said on the Senate floor Thursday, and so should not try to push through a liberal agenda.
Biden has an institutional advantage, however, that Trump lacked: a deep knowledge of Congress and longtime personal relationships with many of its members. The president, unlike his predecessor, may be more hands-on in negotiations.
“I think you’ll see him quite involved in the days ahead,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Thursday.
