After a rough election cycle for everybody, a rough voting process, and an even rougher year, it eventually happened: Joe Biden was inaugurated and became the newest President of the United States of America. Whether you like him or not, you can’t ignore the fact that a lot has gotten done during the beginning of his Presidency. We finally seem to be in the final stretch of the COVID-19 Pandemic which has shaped America for over a year now, with many Americans getting vaccinated. It seems we can all be cautiously optimistic for the future.

Beliefs aside, it’s impossible to ignore the political influence that Biden and his VP, Kamala Harris, have had on the country. The Biden Administration started by signing the most executive orders by any President ever, within his first few days in office. He was also able to get the $1.9 Trillion COVID relief bill through Congress.

Leading up to his election and inauguration, Biden had set a plan to take place as soon as he stepped into office. This plan was long and extensive, but here are some of the main goals he had set:

Day 1 or Prior:

• Establish a COVID task force, release a vaccine plan.
• Push for legislation regarding COVID relief.
• Rejoin the World Health Organization.
• Make the US a leader against climate change.
• Stop separating families along the US-Mexico borders.

First 100 Days: 

• Vaccinate 100 Million Americans.
• End construction of the US-Mexico border wall.
• Increase police reform, address systemic racism in America.
• Fix foreign alliances.
• Increase corporate taxes.
• Reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.
• Freeze Deportations for 100 days.
• Strengthen Gun Control.
• Provide economic relief for those struggling during the pandemic.

Whether or not you agree with what he wanted to do, it’s obvious that this was a very ambitious list of promises. Nevertheless, it excited many liberals and progressives alike, especially after 4 years of being unheard during the Trump administration. With such a list of important objectives, it was crucial to Biden to make sure that all of these changes get done. So, has he kept up with all of his promises?

Obviously, no. This was a lot for him to get done, especially with a congress as split as it has ever been, with democrats and independents making up exactly half of the senate and only a slight majority of 10 in the 400+ member house.

What, out of all of his ambitious ideas, was he able to accomplish?

COVID:

Biden’s biggest accomplishment without a doubt has been the amount he has been able to do about the COVID-19 Pandemic. He was able to establish a task force, as he said, and over doubled the original amount of vaccines he wanted to get distributed by the end of his first 100 days. As recently as the 13th of May, he and the CDC were able to lift the federal mask mandate for those who are fully vaccinated (2 weeks or more have passed since the second dose/first dose of the Johnson & Johnson). Regardless of opinion on the decision, in only a few months of his Presidency, he has been able to return the country to some sense of normalcy.

Economic Plans: 

Relating to COVID, Biden passed the $1.9 Trillion COVID relief bill, which worked to provide stimulus and unemployment more reliably for those who need it, increase food stamps coverage, fund reopening schools, and more. This provided much-needed relief for many Americans.

Climate Change: 

Biden has taken executive action to reduce greenhouse emissions in the United States, in a plan which will also increase jobs in America by the millions, according to those behind it. He also got us back into the Paris Climate Accord, an international organization against climate change that former President Donald Trump is responsible for leaving. While the effectiveness of the plan is still up in the air, it is clear that Biden is taking steps in the right direction for climate change.

So, Biden has made some steps in the direction that progressives want to see him go in. This doesn’t make him perfect though; he hasn’t lived up to many of his promises that members of his party were expecting to see.

Violence Against Women and LGBTQ+: 

Biden has not signed the Violence Against Women Act or any type of Equality acts as he was expected to. This has, as you would expect, upset many of his supporters.

Gun Control: 

Biden has not made any steps towards strengthening gun control in America, as he was expected to do. Regardless of thoughts as to if he should or not, it was at least expected that he would take measures towards this goal.

Police Reform: 

In the wake of police brutality reaching more and more into the public eye with protests and movements such as BLM, Biden was expected to take steps in the direction of reforming the police system to weed out systemic racism in America. He himself even said that he would be taking steps in this direction. Whether it will come later in his term or not at all is still up in the air, but it’s clear that he has disappointed many with his lack of action, for a cause which he very openly supported leading up to his election. It’s almost dishonest of him to not take action after promising it in the months leading up to his Presidency.

Border Control: 

Another major disappointment, Biden has done almost nothing about border control facilities or wall construction since his inauguration. The border wall which was started by former President Donald Trump has continued its construction unopposed by the President, and border facilities have not seen improvements over the past decade; children are still being separated from their families and kept in small, enclosed areas. COVID has made the conditions in these facilities noticeably worse as those contained are forced to be separated by cramped, plastic dividers in some cases.

Corporate Taxes:

Corporate Income Tax has gone down drastically over the last century, and many see this as a massive problem, expecting the Biden administration to make changes.

Biden promised to reverse the corporate tax cuts put into place by the previous administration but has failed at doing so. While it seems to be an ongoing matter, his supporters were definitely expecting more to be done during his first few months in office.

Final Thoughts:

To finish off by giving my personal opinion, Biden has done much better than I thought he would. He isn’t flawless by any means, but he has definitely done more good than harm. Every issue has either improved somewhat or stayed the same, so at the very least, he isn’t making things worse. During the electoral process, admittedly, I was rooting for Trump’s election simply because I believed that he could not cause any more harm than he already had, and Biden seemed a bit extreme. However, retrospectively, I am glad that he got elected as opposed to Trump.

While his supporters most likely expected him to get more done than he has, at the very least, he got elected and has made steps in the right direction. How many of those steps he will need, however, is still up for debate.