President Biden’s underwhelming first year
President Biden’s first year in office was underwhelming: we didn’t see him follow through on many of the promises he made during his campaign including forgiving student loan debt and expanding public health care.
We also believe that Biden isn’t responding to the climate change issue effectively or fast enough. Climate related issues are worsening at an alarming rate and the more time it takes to pass legislation to combat it, the more difficult it will be to reverse the damage.
As for Biden’s response to Covid-19, we support his efforts to encourage vaccinations and masks. However, Covid tests need to be more readily available for Americans. Giving out four rapid tests per household is not enough because many people still do not have access to proper testing.
However, despite the slow progress, many of us agree that his presidency provided a lot of relief and break from the chaos we experienced under President Donald Trump. We no longer have to anxiously anticipate controversial headlines as a result of Trump’s unpredictable and extreme reactions to world events. We also applaud Biden for repealing several of Trump era policies, restoring peace in various areas.
Biden has also made notable progress in diversifying his cabinet and federal positions by appointing people of color and women to fill these traditions often held by white men. The increased representation has been a step in the right direction, but we also want to see changes in legislation regarding social justice like voting rights.
While we understand that it is difficult to pass legislation with a divided Congress, we hope to see Biden continue to work towards keeping his campaign promises in the next few years of his term.
I agree that President Biden’s first year was underwhelming, but not surprising. Politicians in the past have made many promises that have not been kept, especially the more outlandish promises (a great example of this was when Donald Trump promised an good wall across the entire US-Mexican border. Many already knew that it would cost far too much, be far too hard to build, and be far too hard to man and maintain). It is mentioned in the article that Biden had not fulfilled his campaign promises of forgiving student loan debt and expanding public health care. I think these are both great examples of promises that were far too unrealistic. This is because both have been tough issues that we have been tackling since the cold war era (and possibly even the WWII era). Many have tried and failed to solve those issues (which, funny enough, have become the defining issues of the USA). It wasn’t hard to think that Biden would join that group of people. Both issues are extremely complicated and tie into far too many things/other problems to even imagine, so I doubt that Biden will ever solve them (even in the future).
I just wanted to point out that Congress is not divided. Democrats control the Senate, House, and Presidency and while the members may not agree on everything, there are plenty of good, substantive policies they all support that can get passed if Democratic leadership truly wanted to get things done, but as per usual, since the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, Congress is acting as if they have solved all the country’s issues and have gone back to brunch.