What Biden has done as President so far; my thoughts
It has been a little over two weeks since Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of The United States of America.
While many have already developed strong opinions and attitudes toward President Biden’s time in office thus far, I’m not going to sugarcoat the fact that I am a 20-year-old girl that mainly focuses her time on TikTok, insead of politics. I have honestly been more wrapped up in Olivia Rodrigo’s Driver’s License drama, than any paper Biden has signed off on yet.
Therefore, I decided to educate myself on how Biden is currently handling our country’s affairs. Here is what I know so far.
On February 2nd, President Biden had signed as many as 28 executive orders; almost as much as President Franklin Roosevelt who still takes the cake of 30 within his first month in office. Personally, I feel that this is a significant start when it comes to putting words into actions. Time and time again we have seen many Presidents in the past, whether they are a Republican or Democrat, tell the American people what they want to hear and then not do anything about it once they have received the votes.
Whichever side of the political spectrum you find yourself on, I feel that it is important to recognize this newfound haste in making change happen.
Out of all the executive orders that Biden has signed, the two that seem to be most controversial are the strengthening of the Medicaid and Affordable Care Act, as well as promoting COVID-19 safety in foreign and international travel.
The White House described Biden’s intentions for the policy, “After four years of attempts to strip health care from millions of Americans, President Biden will sign two executive actions that will begin to restore and strengthen Amercians’ access to quality, affordable health care.”
Many Republicans are particularly frustrated by this order, after former President Trump worked extensively to reform Medicaid. As a result, there has been a significant amount of criticism in Biden’s decisions to only push through Democratic priorities.
Another influential event to note has been Biden’s efforts in becoming familiar with the U.S. World Health Organization after Trump withdrew in July 2020, as well as the Paris Climate Agreement. In an effort to distribute vaccines globally, Biden aims to collaborate with the rest of the world in controlling COVID-19 outbreaks.
The Paris Climate Agreement has also sparked conversations as Biden hopes to avert global warming across the world. According to The NY Times, “President Biden Jr. brings with him the largest team of climate change experts ever assembled in the White House.” During President Trump’s term, he claimed that global warming was a “hoax” and the U.S. withdrew from the agreement.
Those who support Biden are celebrating these triumphs of order, and those who stood with Trump are experiencing a loss of the past four year’s work. As an outsider of politics in general, I can only conclude that our country is undergoing a substantial amount of changes within only the first month of the New Year, which is a start.
Will President Biden continue to follow up with his promises, we will have to see within these next four years.
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Gabby Wood is a communication major with a focus in public relations. Outside the office, you can find her trying new coffee shops and endlessly scrolling...
Lynn Hess • Apr 23, 2021 at 5:14 pm
Hi, I am 22 and also loosely follow politics. I think that a lot of what Biden has done is try to put on a show so that Americans feel good that he is in the office instead of Trump. While things like being part of WHO and the Paris Accord are crucial, there is one thing that makes me extremely disappointed in Biden.
During the Trump presidency, the US asked India’s help in certain chemicals to produce vaccines to which India agreed to do. A lot of raw materials required by the rest of the world for the vaccines come from the US. When Biden took over the office, they put a ban on the export of all vaccine-related material, leaving a lot of countries high and dry. I personally feel that it was a very bad decision on Biden’s part since the US has a surplus of vaccine material that they acquired through the help of other countries. This will affect the relationship of the US with other countries. India, Japan, and Africa are seeing a second wave of COVID with mutations and desperately need to produce vaccines fast. They have requested the US to lift the embargo but have been denied. The Obama administration had a reputation of strong-arming countries and generally being very inconsiderate towards others. I think Biden is following suit. Not cooperating with the rest of the world works when you are the most powerful. However, over the past many years, the US is becoming substantially weaker. It is important for the US to stand with the rest of the world as they face this pandemic.
I think this would be a good topic to look into and maybe will help with any future writings you do : )
Kim Bookhout • Mar 9, 2021 at 8:19 pm
Scott, you made some interesting points! Where is the laptop? We had to listen to four years of how Trump would withhold information and what a terrible person he was for doing it “to the people”. Why isn’t Biden being held to the same expectations?
I wander if Biden will donate his pay as president back to America like Trump did?
scott cannon • Mar 9, 2021 at 7:25 pm
I find this article to be a total fluff piece…you have to be kidding that you think biden completely bypassing the system and making himself dictator by pen and phone is a good thing…the entire point of our system is so this sort of thing does not happen. The entire reason we have the other branches of government is you cannot trust any one person with this sort of power. this is how countries go off the rails like germany and russia have repeatedly in the past.
I find it beyond amazing people have the cognitive dissonance to be able to say something is only wrong when the other side does it. the entire 4 years trump was president all we heard was about russian collusion and how vulnerable our elections are, and how trump stole it…of course when 2020 rolls around suddenly our elections are bullet proof to such an extent evidence is dismissed before it’s even heard in a court of law. We heard time and time again that trump was with holding foreign aid to get an investigation started on joe biden’s son when we have video evidence of joe biden admitting he witheld foreign aid under obama until the prosecutor was fired…
it frankly disgusts me that we “elected” an obviously suffering corrupt old man who is not going to complete his first year let alone his first term…just so we can usher in a woman who was laughed out of the democratic primary as unelectable…who called her running mate a racist and said we should believe the women who accused him of sexual misconduct…ONLY a 20 year old or someone who gets all their news from a television would not see that as an obvious setup.
also it’s obvious the only reason joe has so many executive orders in his first couple weeks is because they are using him up. getting everything they can out of him before they remove him with the 25th amendment and pretend like it’s a surprise he has dementia. Because think about it if any one of his orders actually catches some backlash. it’s all fine he is out kamala is in and they basically get a fresh start with whatever they managed to force through before he was called on his rampant abuse of power.
He will literally sign anything they drop in front of him and you think he is a leader. just last week he was telling nancy pelosi he will do “whatever she wants” that’s pretty terrifying for the leader of the country to be so deferent to the speaker of the house. they are not exactly supposed to oppose each other but they ARE supposed to be separate branches of the government.
brush up on your mandarin unless something changes soon china owns us now. history is not going to look back on your generation kindly in the wake of covid 19…not at all. People like you literally gave up the keys to the kingdom because you were scared of the sniffles. You are so in the dark about how things are going that you are just now learning facts that people who don’t live in your bubble knew 8 months ago. like cuomo’s handling of covid…whitmer isn’t far from the chopping block either. But 3 months ago people were telling us how great he is and calling themselves “cuomosexuals” ironic he catches a sex scandal two months in on 2020 just as the story is breaking that he covered up the numbers. By irony I mean…obviously someone was sitting on these women waiting until they were needed to distract from the really messed up stuff he did to a lot of people’s grandparents or whatever other scandal they don’t want you looking too closely at.
someday you will learn that the people who give you “news” are more beholden to the billionaires that sign their paychecks than they are to giving the American people the unaltered truth. Epstine was a known story years before it ever broke in the media but higher ups kept suppressing it. Cosby was an open secret in hollywood. Do you think these things just happen by coincidence? Any time a story comes up about someone protected it gets killed…where is hunter’s laptop? Suddenly not a concern now that daddy is president.
Kim Bookhout • Mar 9, 2021 at 12:34 am
When I was younger (now 50) I, too, did not pay much attention to politics. Plus, I was told to never discuss two things (religion and politics) with people outside my family. Well the conservatives have lived by that rule and now look at the condition we are in. I am not saying President Trump was the best president but his administration/he did things for our country the media did not tell us about. Instead the media selected to only tell us the negative. For example, (if you don’t have a pet you may not care…) did you know Obama made it to where individuals pay a fine if they cause cruelty to animals? President Trump took it one step further and said not only will individuals pay a fine, they will also do time in prison. Did we ever hear/read about that?
Things to ponder… why did several of the riots and Black Lives Matter, BLM, stop when Trump was no longer in office? Were the people causing havoc to blame on President Trump and to believe we are going to have a civil war? I don’t know about you , but I don’t believe that if a person is going to make poor choices like storming the capital,they are going to be truthful as to who they are and publicize it (like when the media said they are Trump supporters because of their attire). (For instances, if I’m holding a cigarette people would assume I smoke… far from the truth…. I CANNOT STAND SMOKE!)
Did you know m, Susan Rosenberg, the lady that took the explosives into the capital while Clinton was president is on the committee for BLM and the media is not sharing any of that information. Why is that? The capital has so many cameras and guards why hasn’t more justice been done? Did a certain people want the situation to be viewed as one person’s fault? Is this public being distracted by Impeachment so we don’t see what is really going on in America? If Biden wants us safe from COVID, why are thousands of people being let into America with out first being tested, quarantined and then tested again? (P.S. Clinton got Susan out of prison as his term was coming to an end.)
Another thing to think about… “Going Green” has benefits but the universe was shown by the terrible storms in Texas we cannot be 100% Green. We needed electricity that wind turbines couldn’t produce alone. To have electricity you need oil. The Kestone XL pipelines not only helped us get that oil, but provided jobs for American people, prevented us from having to buy it elsewhere and helped keep gas prices down. If President Biden is for the people, why did he do something against America?
Check out how life’s become in Venezuela. (Hopefully internet hasn’t blocked it.) I was reading about how they have to stand at the store for hours waiting to get inside and then can only purchase five items. The government slowly took control and their Freedom was taken away. Just like the government is doing to us.
Thank you for paying more attention to politics before you mo longer have the freedom you have today! Stay safe and God bless!
Donna Lee Mirabito • Feb 28, 2021 at 6:16 pm
I am a 70 yr. old retired woman and I am so happy and impressed to hear a young lady see reality and not be brainwashed by the Trump Propaganda. He just made a speech at the CAPC once again lying that Biden has done nothing, thing is his cult beliefs what he says. I Pray young men and women such as you see the truth and not the Propaganda of the Republican Party and Trump. The Republican Party voted to acquit Trump during the impeachment because Trump has them believe he is the only one to help them with the 2022 elections for house seats. I AM SO AFRAID FOR YOUR GENERATION AND MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS, IF PEOPLE CONTINUE TO BELIEVE THE PROPAGANDA OF TRUMP AND THE GOP, OUR COUNTRY IS IN TROUBLE, CONSTANT CIVIL WARS LIKE WHAT HAPPEN AT THE CAPITAL . The hate, anger, and death will continue. If you research this be careful because those who are true cult will not listen to you and so I say be safe and God Bless you. Thanks Donna Mirabito