Biden Has Been Pushed to Deliver by Progressives and Advocates

Upending the narrative of the first 100 days

• In response to the tragic outbreak of COVID-19 in India, Biden’s team ignored calls for help for several days. Finally, national security adviser Jake Sullivan ended the export ban on raw materials for vaccines. Then, after weeks of prodding, he decided to share with India and the world dormant AstraZeneca vaccines that had been sitting in a warehouse in Baltimore.
• The administration set a deadline of March 15 for an emergency temporary workplace standard for COVID-19, then shot past that date and at one point even put the rule on hold. After pushing from Senate Democrats and labor unions, finally yesterday the Department of Labor advanced the temporary standard through the regulatory process, which means it’s still not active until after the Office of Management and Budget signs off.  
• After initially leaving out changes to health care in the American Families Plan, which will be announced in Wednesday’s speech to a joint session of Congress, the administration took a ton of heat from all factions of the party, and it finally decided to include $200 billion to extend increased subsidies for the Affordable Care Act insurance exchanges (which were added for two years in the American Rescue Plan). This has not stopped the lobbying, as over 80 House Democrats spanning the ideological divide from AOC to Conor Lamb are pushing to lower the Medicare eligibility age and allow prescription drug price negotiation in Medicare, the latter a cost-reducing policy that Biden’s team has still left out.
• The Biden team’s greatest legislative accomplishment, the expanded and advanced child tax credit in the American Rescue Plan, only lasts for one year. Democrats pressured Biden to make that permanent, but he rejected that, citing the high cost, and instead will reportedly only extend it to 2025 in tomorrow’s announcement. Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA), chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, has deviated from that script, today introducing a family care bill that makes the CTC permanent.
• The Biden team needed only to sign a piece of paper to increase the refugee cap and allow tens of thousands of migrants in deplorable conditions to settle in the United States. Biden promised to do it and briefed Congress, then changed his mind (reportedly it was his decision) and left the refugees stuck on the tarmack. After tremendous pushback from all corners of the party, Biden relented—but only to say that he would set a new refugee cap by May 15.

And I haven’t gotten into student debt cancellation, or marijuana legalization, or what’s going on with the Yemen war, or more.

This is a defined trend. On a number of key areas, Biden’s team has not been the one with the boundless ambition. They’ve reneged or stayed silent on a number of items, only moving when enough pressure has been created by the political system to make inaction impossible. And often those reluctant moves are half-steps: raw materials and AstraZeneca vaccines but no IP waiver on vaccine patents, or ACA exchange subsidies but no drug price reform, or so on. Even on the minimum wage increase for federal contractors, there’s much more that can be done, as we’ve outlined in our Executive Action Tracker. Biden can ban contractors from forced employee arbitration agreements; he can require them to maintain neutrality in union organizing; he can mandate replacement contractors to rehire the previous firm’s workers. None of this has been done.

As we’re moving into an uncertain area on legislative policy, this is problematic. Joe Manchin wants the infrastructure package whittled down to next to nothing with the participation of Republicans. As his vote is critical, there’s simply no guarantee that anything monumental will come of the infrastructure bill; the return of earmarks might spur cooperation, or it might not. Manchin also refuses to budge on the filibuster and thinks voting rights changes have to be done in common cause with a party that’s actively moving to suppress the vote across the country. There are some bipartisan gangs circling one another on China policy and criminal justice, but again success is not ensured.

Therefore, executive action and implementation is fast becoming the only remaining path by which change can happen, and the executive branch is, in many key areas… let’s say reluctant. I mentioned the Executive Action Tracker, and its 77 discrete agenda items. Biden’s accomplished 7, and gets partial credit for another 5. That’s not good enough, leaving on the table a host of policies on climate, health care, financial regulation, conservation, consumer protection, and much more. Implementation of grants for arts venues was delayed four months and only restarted yesterday; implementation of rental assistance for desperate tenants is just as bad. Immigration policy is thus far a trail of broken promises.