The Biden-Harris administration has laid out an aggressive agenda for Joe Biden’s presidency. This agenda spans a wide range of issues, from American leadership abroad to zero carbon emissions, quite literally A to Z.

However, President Biden has made it clear that his plan “to restore the soul and to secure the future of America” is unlikely to be successful without unity. So, his ultimate goal as President is to unite the country. In his inaugural address, Biden promised, “my whole soul is in this: Bringing America together. Uniting our people. And uniting our nation.”

COVID-19

President Biden has introduced his plan to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, vowing, “I’m never going to raise the white flag and surrender. We’re going to beat this virus. We’re going to get it under control, I promise you.”

The Biden-Harris plan to control the virus includes providing Americans with easier and equitable access to reliable testing, treatment, and vaccination. The administration also aims to supply the public with accurate, scientifically-based information about the virus and how communities should navigate it. Finally, they hope to protect all Americans through mask mandates and reversing previous Trump administration policies that President Biden and his scientific advisors consider counterproductive.

The President has promised to distribute “100 million shots in [his] first 100 days” in office, which experts consider to be “attainable” but “extremely challenging.”

“It seems likely that when historians look back at President Joe Biden’s record,” said Victoria Knight from Politifact, “what he’ll be judged on is whether his administration was successful in delivering COVID-19 vaccines to all 330 million Americans quickly.”

CLIMATE CHANGE

A key difference between President Biden and President Trump is that Trump pushed isolationist policies that “put America first,” whereas Biden wants to re-engage and re-establish America’s leadership role in the world. His environmental plan is an example.    

When discussing his plan for climate change, Biden said, “global action requires American leadership…America once again will be able to stand proudly on the world stage, and challenge every other nation to follow our example and our leadership.”

One way Biden promised to accomplish this was by rejoining the Paris Climate Accord, which he did his first day in office.  

As Vice President to President Obama, Biden oversaw an investment of over 90 billion dollars in clean energy—the largest in American history. As President, he says he will make an even more considerable investment of 1.7 trillion dollars towards “securing our future,” as he put it.  

The Biden-Harris administration’s goal is for the United States to be a 100 percent clean energy economy with net-zero emissions by 2050. Biden says that by the end of his first term, there will be an enforcement mechanism in place to ensure America will stay on track to accomplish this.

To achieve the administration’s environmental goals, Politifact says that “Congressional action is needed.” With the Democrats winning the Georgia runoff elections, Biden has secured a majority in Congress. However, it is a narrow majority. In many cases, the President will need to acquire the support of Republican representatives to pass legislation.

RACIAL INJUSTICE

One of the realms President Biden was criticized in during his campaign was racial injustice, as he has had some discrepancies in this area in the past. For instance, Biden was closely involved in the creation of a controversial crime bill under President Clinton (1994) that led to the mass incarceration of Black people in America and is “widely criticized today for disproportionate harm to people of color.”

However, the Biden-Harris plan for Black America claims that “[t]ackling systemic racism and fighting for civil rights has been a driving force throughout Biden’s career in public service.”

The Biden-Harris administration seeks to address and eliminate racial injustice in several ways. Regarding the racial wealth gap, they intend to invest in Black-owned businesses, which, in their words, “often lack the capital they need to succeed.”

The Biden-Harris plan to equalize education across diverse communities states that they will “[e]liminate the funding gap between white and non-white districts…in order to give teachers a raise and expand STEM curriculum in underserved school districts.”

President Biden also strives to create equity in health and healthcare across all races. His plan affirms that the administration will reduce the uninsured rate for Black Americans by creating a public-option health plan. They also hope to improve care for patients with chronic conditions that disproportionately affect Black people, like diabetes, and reduce the mortality rate related to pregnancy complications that also inordinately impact Black women.  

The Biden-Harris plan acknowledges the lack of racial equity in America’s criminal justice system, saying, “[o]ur criminal justice system cannot be just unless we root out the racial, gender, and income-based disparities in the system.”

The administration has promised to enlist the Justice Department to root out unconstitutional or unlawful policing. Additionally, they plan to use the Justice Department’s authority and legislation that clarifies investigation policy to address systemic misconduct in prosecutors’ offices.  

President Biden will also employ a national commission to address policing issues. He said, “I’ll bring everyone to the table, including police chiefs, including civil rights activists, including the NAACP, including the African, the Latino community. We’re going to sit down there and we’re going to work it out.”

THE ECONOMY

Each of the administration’s agendas ties into a broader plan for the American economy.    

With his climate agenda, President Biden hopes to reinvent the economy around sustainable energy and create new jobs in the process. 

One reason the Biden-Harris plan aspires to get the pandemic under control as quickly and safely as possible is that the President believes this will allow the economy to return to normal sooner.  

The administration strives to build an economy that is equitable across all races and classes. The Biden-Harris plan for racial injustice says Biden ran “for President to rebuild our economy in a way that finally brings everyone along—and that starts by rooting out systemic racism from our laws, our policies, our institutions, and our hearts.”

The Biden-Harris Plan attests that the nation stands to gain economically from criminal justice reform, stating, “[o]ur criminal justice system must be focused on redemption and rehabilitation. Making sure formerly incarcerated individuals have the opportunity to be productive members of our society is not the right thing to do, it will also grow our economy.”

This is only a portion of the priorities that President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have set for the presidency. Others include (but are not limited to) protecting immigrants, empowering women, advancing LGBTQ+ rights, and putting an end to gun violence in America.  

Few presidents have come into office with the landscape of crises that President Biden is now facing. The combination of the global pandemic, climate change, systemic racial inequities, and a struggling economy have raised comparisons to President Abraham Lincoln and the Civil war or President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Great Depression and Second World War.  

Each of those earlier crises demanded much from the American people, and President Biden acknowledges that the current situations will do the same. He is calling for unity and resolve across America, saying in his inaugural address, “This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward. And, we must meet this moment as the United States of America. If we do that, I guarantee you, we will not fail.”

Image source: ABC.