JRB Has the Most Impressive Agenda Since LBJ.


     When President Biden took office, a pandemic that killed well over a million Americans was raging throughout the country. The tide began to shift when President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act and a series of executive actions that got the pandemic under control and created 16 million jobs, the most of any president in one term in U.S. history.

     That was just the beginning. Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which made the largest investment in infrastructure since the Eisenhower administration and included historic investments in areas such as environmental restoration, clean water, rural electrification, clean energy, public transport, and more. The CHIPS and Science Act came soon after and helped spur the creation of the highest number of manufacturing jobs in decades, including half a million jobs in the auto industry. Small businesses have had their three best years in modern history. Stocks are at record highs. Black unemployment hit a record low, overall unemployment claims hit a 60-year low, 40 states hit record low unemployment rates, and America has enjoyed its longest stretch with unemployment this low since the 1960s.

     At the same time, President Biden has taken executive action to raise wages and protect the right to organize, and the 2020s is set to be the most active decade for unionization since the 1960s. More than a million veterans have been covered under the historic Honoring Our PACT Act, which provides benefits to veterans exposed to toxins and is the most consequential bill for veterans since FDR signed the GI Bill. In education, President Biden provided relief to millions of student loan borrowers and secured the largest Pell Grant increases in history and the largest investments in historically-minority higher education institutions in history.

     In social justice, President Biden took executive action on police reform, signed marijuana reform legislation and executive orders reminiscent of when FDR ended Prohibition in 1933, signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act and Emmett Till Antilynching Act, made Juneteenth a national holiday, appointed the first black woman to the Supreme Court, and signed the Respect for Marriage Act codifying interracial and same-sex marriages. Violent crime is undergoing its largest decline in 60 years after President Biden took historic action on gun safety, signed legislation and executive orders targeting sexual harassment and assault as well as violence against women, and invested tens of billions of dollars in law enforcement and crime intervention. 

     I've already highlighted President Biden's environmental agenda, which is the most successful since the Nixon administration. It includes dozens of executive actions, a record rate of protections for American lands and waters, dozens of aggressive environmental restoration and justice projects, the ratification of the Kigali Amendment and return to the Paris Agreement, and the signing of the ADVANCE Act to boost nuclear power. His most impressive environmental legacy is the Inflation Reduction Act, which has served its primary goal: inflation is down by 70 percent in the two years since the law was signed and prices declined last month for the first time in four years. The law provided hundreds of billions of dollars for clean energy projects around the country, and, between all of these actions, the United States is set to halve its 2005 carbon emission levels by 2030.

     The law also extended subsidies on the Affordable Care Act that provided healthcare to some five million Americans and plunged rates of Americans without insurance to a record low. It also allowed Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices; capped vaccine, insulin, and out-of-pocket drug prices for seniors; forced companies to pay penalties for increasing drug costs faster than inflation, and more.

     I could go on. President Biden assassinated the leaders of ISIS and al-Qaeda, ended the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, provided support to Ukraine and Israel, provided tens of billions of dollars of humanitarian aid across the world, took executive action on immigration that rivals DACA in its significance, engaged in the most aggressive antitrust agenda in the past century, bolstered Made-in-America products, fought to protect reproductive rights, signed the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, saved the U.S. Postal Service, appointed a diverse slate of over 200 federal judges, and so much more. It's not just that Donald Trump will fundamentally damage America for decades to come if he retakes the White House. It's that Joe Biden has accomplished a historic amount in four years, and he deserves four more years to add to the most impressive agenda since LBJ. To donate to re-elect JRB, click here.

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