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No-drama Joe Biden’s first 100 days: big wins, but challenges ahead
No-drama Joe Biden’s First 100 Days: Big wins, but Challenges Ahead | GZERO World

No-drama Joe Biden’s first 100 days: big wins, but challenges ahead

In his first 100 days, Biden has issued more executive orders than any president since FDR. 40 of them by mid-April. His administration exceeded (modestly set) goals for vaccine distribution, pushed a record $1.9 trillion stimulus plan through Congress, rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement and announced an end to the war in Afghanistan. Biden's approval rating of 53% at the 100-day milestone, though lower than those of Obama and Bush, is 12 points higher than Trump's was at this point. But there are clear signs the next several months will be a much bumpier ride, with challenges from immigration to healthcare to a deeply divided Congress.

Watch the episode: Make politics "boring" again: Joe Biden's first 100 Days

Gabriella Turrisi

Biden's big bet on Big Government

There are many differences between America's two main political parties, but the most fundamental is this: Democrats say government can and should act boldly to improve people's lives and strengthen the nation. Republicans insist that government itself poses the greatest threat to individual liberty and the nation's lasting competitive strength. The past 100 days make crystal-clear which side of that argument President Joe Biden lives on.

Ronald Reagan's presidency in the 1980s seemed to finally settle this question in favor of less government. Bill Clinton, the first post-Reagan Democrat in the White House, famously told Congress in 1996 that "the era of big government is over." A generation later, outside of his ambitious healthcare reform plan, fellow Democrat Barack Obama was notably cautious on this question.

But the pandemic has given Biden an opportunity to show government can go big. Historically big.

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