MUST READ: What Has Biden Done For Me?

By Just Saying

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Daily Kos

Thursday, January 25, 2024 at 2:42:41p MST

REPUBLISHED TO: 

Blue Country Gazette Blog

Rim Country Gazette Blog

[Gazette Blog editor's note: A relative who doesn't intend to vote in November recently explained her rationale: "What's Biden done for me?"  If you've experienced something similar from an acquaintance, here, in the best MAGA vernacular, is some "ammunition."] 

[Updated to include suggested additions to list. Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions and the kind remarks!]

My son gets too much non-information from youtube videos, including repeated claims that Biden “hasn’t really done anything”. I promised I would provide him a list of Biden’s accomplishments so far. Using whitehouse.gov and DailyKos’s Good News Roundup — ”Boosting Biden” series, I made a bullet list of achievements. I also wanted something I could cut and paste if I read the same claim on social media. (You’re free to use, as well.) Let me know if I got anything wrong, or if I missed anything:

Through Executive Orders, executive and administrative actions, and bipartisan legislation, Biden's accomplishments include:

Economy/Employment

• Over the past two years, inflation reduced by two-thirds while unemployment kept low and economy grew by 3%
  

• Avoided recession

• Two of the strongest years of job growth in history

• Nearly 11 million jobs created since 2021

• Created more manufacturing jobs in 2022 than in any single year in nearly 30 years

• 3.5% unemployment rate — the lowest in 50 years

• 750,000 new manufacturing jobs

• Near record low unemployment rate for Hispanics

• Near record low unemployment rate for African-Americans

• Record low unemployment rate for people with disabilities

• Awarded the most ever federal contracting dollars to small businesses and disadvantaged small businesses

• Incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act have spurred companies to spend nearly $300 billion on investments in manufacturing

• As a result of the CHIPS and Science Act, which provides incentives for domestic manufacture of technology, in just one year, U.S. companies have announced $166 billion in investments in semiconductors and electronics. This will provide American jobs, decrease reliance on foreign manufacturing of critical technologies, and position the US to lead future scientific innovations.

• Creating “workplace hubs” to provide training, re-training, technical education, and apprenticeships in emerging technology and manufacturing

• Increased funding to the IRS to enable audits of high-income taxpayers, resulting in the recovery of over $160 million in back taxes owed by millionaires and billionaires

Cost Of Living

• Executive Orders and releases of strategic oil reserves resulted in gas prices more than $1.60 lower than their summer 2022 peak

• $15 minimum wage for Federal workers and contractors

• Over 100 actions to lower household energy costs by $100 per year

• Over 16 million households receiving lower cost or free high-speed internet through the Affordable Connectivity Program

• Commitments from 20 leading internet providers to increase speeds and cut prices

• Inflation reduced by two thirds from its 2022 high

HealthCare & Costs

• Millions of Americans are saving $800 per year on health insurance coverage

• Four out of five people can buy health insurance on healthcare.gov for $10/month or less

• Health insurance coverage rates increased by 50% since January 2021

• More people with health insurance – 92% insured is the highest in history

• Lowered Medicare recipients’ health care expenses, including by capping out of pocket expenses on prescription drugs at $2,000 per year, capping insulin costs at $35/month, and providing free vaccines

• Lowered the cost of hearing aids by making them available over the counter

• $37 billion in funding for senior and disability services, including community based services

• Improvements to veterans' health care, particularly for veterans exposed to harmful chemicals

• Advanced research on cancer and other diseases through the ARPA-H initiative

• “Cancer Moonshot” with the goal of cutting the cancer death rate by at least half over the next 25 years

• Hosted White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health; with a goal to end hunger and reduce diet-related diseases

Students& Student Loan Debt

• More than 40 million borrowers able to benefit from student debt relief

• Canceled over $22 billion in student loan debt so far

• Increased the maximum value of Pell Grants by $900

Climate/Environmental Protections

• Rejoined the Paris Agreement to combat climate change

• Over 100 Executive Orders and legislation to develop clean energy, protect America's lands and waterways, reduce pollution, and stimulate the development of clean energy businesses

• Reducing costs of electric vehicles (EVs) for families, initiating first national EV charging network, and historic investments into EV batteries and materials

• Assistance to American offshore wind industry, and convened the nation’s first federal-state offshore wind partnership

• New policies and regulations to reduce super pollutants like HFCs and methane gas, and to reduce other emissions fueling climate change

• $350 million to 14 states for the reduction of methane gas

• More than $1 billion for cleanup of Superfund sites, over $250 million to clean up brownfield sites, and $725 million for abandoned mine lands

• Restored protections for Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monuments; and designated Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument for conservation of lands and waters and to protect tribal cultural resources and support outdoor recreation

• $1 billion to clean up and restore the Great Lakes

• $729 million to Virginia for railway projects

Reproductive Freedom

• Executive Orders to protect reproductive rights, including access to emergency care, protecting the right to travel, and strengthening patient privacy

COVID Relief

• 79% of American adults vaccinated against COVID-19, at no cost

• Mailed over 740 million free COVID-19 tests

• Funding to schools for safe re-openings

Infrastructure

• Infrastructure investments in all 50 states, D.C., territories, and tribal nations

• Through the Infrastructure and Stimulus bill, over $1.9 trillion to improve, repair, and build water delivery systems, public transportation, high-speed internet, bridges, roads, railways; and to promote American industries, create jobs, and lower inflation

Crime

• Reduced crime rates: violent crimes down 8% in 2023; in over 175 cities, murder rates down nearly 13%

• Signed legislation to hire more police and invest in community policing

• Signed legislation to reauthorize and strengthen the Violence Against Women Act

• Signed an Executive Order to improve public safety and criminal justice for Native Americans, and to address the problem of missing and murdered indigenous people

• Executive Orders making sexual harassment in the military a crime and implementing procedures to strengthen the military's response to reports of sexual assault

Gun Violence

• Signed the most significant gun violence prevention legislation in nearly 30 years, including enhanced background checks and other measures to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous persons

Marijuana Reform

• Thousands of pardons for people convicted of simple possession of marijuana under federal law and on federal lands and D.C.

• Initiated review of the drug scheduling of marijuana, with a view to reducing the classification of marijuana from Schedule 1 to a more appropriate Schedule

Voting Rights

• Signed the Electoral Count Act, to protect election integrity

Diversity/Equality

• Appointed a record number of women and people of color to serve in the Biden Administration

• Appointed the first African-American woman to the Supreme Court – Ketanji Jackson

• Most diverse judicial appointments in history, including 66% women and 65% people of color

• Record number of federal contracts to small, disadvantaged businesses + measures to increase access to credit for small businesses fuel dramatic increases in small, black-owned business and in black family wealth

• Proposed new regulations to prohibit discrimination against persons with disabilities by the medical profession and in the providing of medical treatments

• Proposed new regulations to prevent discrimination against persons with disabilities by child welfare agencies and in child welfare decisions (e.g., foster care services, child placements, etc.)

• Signed bipartisan legislation protecting same-sex and interracial marriage

• Executive Order to protect LGBTQ+ Americans in the military from discrimination in housing, health care, education, and employment

• Invested historic funding for Tribal governments and Native communities

Criminal Justice & Civil Rights

• Executive Orders for reforms to criminal justice system, to improve prison conditions, provide assistance to parolees and recently-released, and to improve police practices, including banning chokeholds, reducing no-knock entries, creating a national police accountability database, and reducing the transfer of military equipment to police departments

Foreign Policy

• Support to Ukraine against Russian aggression, including weapons and humanitarian aid

• Strengthened NATO, G7, and other alliances

• Completed the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. The withdrawal process was not without mistakes, but a perfect withdrawal would have extended U.S. involvement in a mission that no longer had purpose. “I was not going to extend this forever war, and I was not going to extend a forever exit,” said President Biden.

• Significant action to curb Chinese threats to U.S. national security and economic interests, including increased restrictions on China’s access to U.S. advanced technology and hosting the first trilateral summit with South Korea, Japan and the United States, while also working to improve communications between the U.S. and China.

• December 2023, announced sale of over $300 million of military equipment to Taiwan in support of Taiwan’s national defense needs, the 12th military sale to Taiwan since Pres. Biden took office.

• Successful counter-terrorism missions against ISIS and Al Qaeda

Sources: Whitehouse.gov; DailyKos.com (Good News Roundup “Boosting Biden” series)

Yeah, Joe, truth be told you deserve another term.