Biden’s presidency from Inauguration to present day

Emmy Johnson, Online Editor

Since President Joe Biden’s campaign, he has had a plan to “reform” America. On his Inauguration Day, Biden signed in 15 policies— more than Trump, Obama, Clinton or Bush did in two weeks, according to the BBC.

Biden has started his Build Back Better program, which will tackle pillars in America in need of assistance.

The Build Back Better program will also include a multitude of job and tax reforms. It’ll extend loans to family businesses and add 200 dollars into Social Security, Biden hopes to keep family-owned businesses afloat during the pandemic. He wants to raise the minimum wage to $15 and give $10,000 worth of loan forgiveness to students.

Famously, Biden’s tax program will tax those who make $500,000 and more in income as well as affect corporations that are subject to the new minimum tax on book income.

The new administration wants to provide an insurance plan much like Medicare to the American public. It would insure 97 percent of Americans and give free medical care to the elderly costing 2.25 trillion dollars in 10 years.  

Using federal dollars, Biden wishes to expand global trade and manufacturing, rejoin America’s allies, specifically the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), along with holding China’s environmental impact and trade practices accountable to ensure a safe relationship with China. Instead of continuing to be isolationist like the Trump administration according to the Washington Post. 

Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement hoping to cut down greenhouse gases by 25 percent by 2025, proposed a 1.7 trillion federal investment program that will explore green technology by slowly stopping production of oil and creating clean plants for energy and advancement of green energy. This plan will overlap with his economic plan to provide engineers more long-term jobs in green energy versus the short-term ones they had in oil production.

The plan doesn’t involve the Green New Deal, proposed by the Leftist party in Congress. “The Green New Deal is not my plan, although my green energy plan will be much like it,” said Biden at the first presidential debate.

This investment program will directly affect Michigan with the talk of shutting down the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline, originally built in 1953, causing mass amounts of jobs to be lost and slowing the production of oil by 14.7 million U.S. gallons of transportation fuel and 700,000 gallons of propane a day. 

Currently, there are now plans to replace Line 5- but we can assume it will be involved with green energy.

Line 5 has grown a reputation with its 33 oil spills, 1.1 million gallons of oil, from 1968. Leading the Straits to have built-in support in 2018 after the Kalamazoo oil spill. According to Great Lakes News, the pipeline is one of the most controversial ones in America. 

2020 has faced extreme forms of human rights reform and Biden is planning to continue these reforms.

Biden began to dismantle Trump’s past policies pertaining to the LGBTQ+ community.

Biden’s Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation states, “Every person should be treated with respect and dignity and should be able to live without fear, no matter who they are or whom they love. Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports. Adults should be able to earn a living and pursue a vocation knowing that they will not be fired, demoted, or mistreated because of whom they go home to or because how they dress does not conform to sex-based stereotypes. People should be able to access healthcare and secure a roof over their heads without being subjected to sex discrimination. All persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.”

He also ended the family separation policy, started to change Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) operation system to stop the influx of trafficking and unfair treatment and has ended travel bans in most Muslim predominate countries.

The administration has also acknowledged a plan to protect DACA or the “Dreamers” that are immigrant kids that came to America illegally and protected under the Obama Administration and to stop drilling for oil on respective Native land like the Keystone XL Pipeline. 

The new administration plans on giving 30 billion dollars to minority businesses to create support and make racial support programs to help those communities, reform criminal justice to reduce incarceration, address race and gender incarceration, income-based disparities in the justice system and rehabilitate released prisoners specifically those of color.

To read more about Biden and his presidency go to JoeBiden.com for updates and information.