From the President
April 29, 2021: 100 Days of Solicitude
Posted on December 11, 2023 at 12:00 AM
“Truth over Lies, Light over Darkness”
We worked hard to elect this winning team. And we are now reaping the fruits of our labor. We are witnessing exponential change in the trajectory of our nation. People are once more the central focus. And the common man’s everyday concerns are being addressed. The era of compassionate leadership is here!
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris inherited many crises needing urgent action. They did not wait. Immediately after their swearing-in they worked on a series of swift and sweeping changes. Biden kicked off his presidency by naming the most racially diverse Cabinet in US history and focused on social justice and inequality. He signed executive orders to help bridge gaps in home-ownership between people of color and White people, strengthened the fight against bigotry faced by Asian Americans, and he repealed a Trump-era ban on transgender Americans joining the military.
He put together an ambitious economic plan (Build Back Better) that promises to “own the future” by expanding the role of government in American life. President Biden and his highly competent, experienced, and motivated team widened the definition of infrastructure to include investments in home and child care, an expansion of broadband, and a restructuring of the tax system in addition to more traditional public works projects like roads, bridges, and railways.
He addressed “the existential crisis of our time,” climate change, with plans to reduce carbon emissions by investing in green infrastructure and technologies, electric vehicles, and clean energy, as well as a clean electricity standard that aims to ?decarbonize the nation’s power sector by 2035—and the whole economy by mid-century. At a White House virtual climate summit with world leaders, Biden pledged to cut US carbon emissions by at least half by 2030. And the President addressed the COVID crisis by signing a $1.9 trillion relief bill into law.
Many of these efforts have paid off even before Biden’s 100th day in office: the administration reached the milestones of 200 million coronavirus shots delivered and vaccine eligibility opened to everyone 16 and over. Unemployment is falling, with the jobless claims hitting new lows, evictions and foreclosures and student loan repayments paused, schools are re-opening for in-person learning, and city and street life is beginning to inch towards normality.
Biden’s job approval rating stands at 53%. He has reversed 62 Trump orders, the unemployment rate is down to 6%, COVID-19 cases are down by 73%, 140 million Americans have already been vaccinated, 11 judges have been nominated, and foreign policy has changed dramatically. We are back as a central player in the world by rejoining the Paris Climate Accords, NATO, and WHO. The US–China relationship is being reset, and our relationships with Afghanistan, Iran, and Russia are being re-evaluated. President Biden has committed to ending our longest war by withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan before September 11. He has also moved to salvage the US–Iran nuclear deal put in place in 2015 under President Barack Obama, which the Trump administration abandoned in 2018. And he recently issued sweeping sanctions and diplomatic expulsions against Russia in response to Moscow’s interference in the 2020 US election, its SolarWinds cyberattack, and its continued occupation and “severe rights abuses” in Crimea.
The President ended Trump’s “Muslim travel ban,” proposed a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States and returned deportation priorities to the status quo in the Obama administration, which focused on people who committed crimes other than entering the country illegally. And on his first day, President Biden threw his support behind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that allows people who came to the US as undocumented children to stay in the country.
Biden explained his approach to governance as a matter of effective timing. “Presidents have been successful, in large part, because they know how to time what they’re doing.”
Nuchhi Currier
President, Woman’s National Democratic Club