 |
|
|||||
Biden's To-Do List Starts with Orders 01/19 06:09 Joe Biden has given himself an imposing to-do list for his earliest days as president and many promises to keep over the longer haul. WASHINGTON (AP) -- Joe Biden has given himself an imposing to-do list for his earliest days as president and many promises to keep over the longer haul. Overshadowing everything at the very start is Biden's effort to win congressional approval of a $1.9 trillion plan to combat the coronavirus and the economic misery it has caused. But climate change, immigration, health care and more will be competing for attention --- and dollars. Altogether Biden has laid out an ambitious if not always detailed set of plans and promises across the range of public policy. Drawn from a review of his campaign statements and a recent memo from Ron Klain, who'll be his chief of staff, here's a sampling of measures to expect right away, around the corner and beyond: WEDNESDAY, after the inauguration, mostly by executive action: --- Declaration that the U.S. is rejoining Paris climate accord. --- Declaration that the U.S. is rejoining World Health Organization. --- Ethical standards for his administration and an order prohibiting interference in the operations of the Justice Department from other parts of government. --- Start of a process to restore 100 public health and environmental rules that the Obama administration created and President Donald Trump eliminated or weakened. --- Start of a process to rejoin the deal restraining Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. --- Executive action to end travel restrictions on people from a variety of Muslim-majority countries. --- Executive action to protect from deportation people who came to the country illegally as children. --- Executive action to make masks mandatory on federal property and when travelling out of state. Others will be asked to wear masks for 100 days. --- Steps to extend pandemic-era restrictions on evictions and foreclosures. --- Legislation to go to Congress proposing to repeal liability protections for gun manufacturers and tightening some other aspects of gun control. --- Immigration legislation to go to Congress as part of an effort to offer a path to citizenship for 11 million people in the U.S. illegally and to codify protections for people who came illegally as children. --- Education Department to be asked to extend the existing pause on student loan payments and interest for millions with student debt. ___ THURSDAY --- Executive action laying out new steps to expand virus testing, protect workers and set new public health standards. ___ FRIDAY --- Directive to agencies to take unspecified immediate action to deliver economic relief from the pandemic. ___ BY FEB. 1 --- Executive actions to strengthen "buy American" provisions. --- Executive actions to address climate change. --- First steps to expand access to health care, for low-income women, women of color and other segments of the population. --- First steps to reunite families still separated at the Mexican border. ___ BEYOND (some may be tried sooner) --- Ensure 100 million vaccines have been given before the end of his first 100 days. --- Ensure 100 federally supported vaccination centers are up and running in his first month. --- Expand use of the Defense Production Act to direct the manufacture of critical pandemic supplies. --- Win passage of a $2 trillion climate package to get the U.S. to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. --- Seek passage of a "Medicare-like public option" to compete alongside private insurance markets for working-age Americans; increase existing premium subsidies. --- Eliminate certain corporate tax cuts where possible, by executive action, while doubling the levies U.S. firms pay on foreign profits. --- Make a plan within 100 days to end homelessness. --- Expand legal immigration slots. --- Freeze deportations for 100 days, then restore the Obama-era principle of deporting foreigners who are seen as posing a national security threat or who have committed crimes in addition to the crime of illegal entry, thereby pulling back the broad deportation policy of the Trump years. --- Halt financing of further construction of the wall along the Mexican border. --- Within 100 days, establish a police oversight commission to combat institutional racism by then. --- Reinstate federal guidance, issued by Obama and revoked by Trump, to protect transgender students' access to sports, bathrooms and locker rooms in accordance with their gender identity. --- Ensure taxes are not raised on anyone making under $400,000. --- Restore Obama-era rules on campus sexual misconduct and a policy that aimed to cut federal money to for-profit colleges that left students with heavy debt they can't pay back. --- Support legislation to make two years of community college free and to make public colleges free for families with incomes below $125,000, with no repayment of student loans required for people who make less than $25,000 a year and, for others, no repayment rate above 5% of discretionary income. --- Support increasing the national minimum wage to $15. --- Try to win passage of a plan to spend $700 billion boosting manufacturing and research and development. --- Establish a commission to study expanding the Supreme Court. --------- itemid:7b4e1c38b09303a922e22e4a8fe35552 |
|||||
