It’s no secret that President Biden was not everyone’s first choice for the democratic presidential nomination. There was even a Settle for Biden organization, run by former Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren supporters, that primarily ran on the fact that Biden was not as big of a threat as Donald Trump. He was eventually elected, and Biden had a lot of pressure on him since the start of his tenure in office.
Biden has been able to accomplish many of his initial campaign promises within the first month of his inauguration. He reversed the transgender military ban, rejoined the World Health Organization, and even reversed family separation and asylum policies. Although these are great accomplishments, especially during chaos caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, many of Biden’s initial promises have not been fulfilled or even mentioned since he was elected into office.
Biden promised to eliminate the Trump tax cut for the “super-wealthy,” cut loopholes in the tax code and use that money to invest in “America’s future.” The money is said to be used for infrastructure, clean energy production and education spending. However, no tax cuts were mentioned in Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus plan, and tax cuts have yet to be mentioned to Congress. He also only plans to do a repeal for corporations and highest-income Americans. He does not support a complete repeal.
Treasury secretary Janet L. Yellen has said this is because she wants to “study and evaluate what the impact of the S.A.L.T. cap has had on local governments, and those who rely upon their services.” She also said that tax cuts will be held off until the economy is more recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic.
While I realize that the pandemic takes priority over certain agendas, Biden and his team fail to realize that many Americans were relying on these tax cuts in order to help economic recovery.
He does not realize the number of Americans that this money could potentially help. He promised these cuts to be abolished on day one. Biden has officially been in office for over 40 days.
Eliminating tax cuts is just one of the many broken promises Biden made for his first day in office. With the First Lady being an educator, many teachers were hopeful about the education reforms promised by Biden. In a public education forum back in 2019, Biden committed to ending the use of standardized testing in public schools. This promise became especially important as schools went online during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Like many previous commitments made by the President, this one was broken as well. Acting assistant education secretary Ian Rosenblum informed state education leaders that no testing waivers would be issued this year. Rosenblum claims that “to be successful once schools have reopened, we need to understand the impact COVID-19 has had on learning and identify what resources and supports students need.”
It’s essential that we learn how online learning has impacted students, but requiring state testing for students is not the answer. Not only is it unsafe for many schools to administer in-person state testing, but these tests will only reflect the negative effects that online learning has on students. Having students and teachers see these poor test scores will just make the issue worse.
The last broken promise that the Biden administration has made regards ending violence in the Middle East. His administration promised to use violence only as a last resort for these conflicts.
This promise was broken not even within Biden’s first 100 days, as the United States military struck a site in Syria thought to be an Iranian-backed militia group stronghold. There were an estimated 22 fatalities as of Feb. 26. This move received major backlash from several congressional Democrats that argued the military actions did not receive congressional approval, making the act unconstitutional.
The number of broken promises goes on, and it is not making a great case for President Biden. Although the premise of his campaign included settling, that does not mean Americans should be settling for his administration’s empty promises.
It's understandable that Biden’s main focus is the COVID-19 pandemic, but his actions in his first month do not compare to the dozens of Day One promises Trump accomplished while in office. And while many like me did not agree with Trump’s policies, you cannot say he gave Americans empty promises like Biden.
Hannah Campbell is a freshman studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Do you agree? Tell Hannah by tweeting her at @hannahcmpbell.
