When signing a series of orders against climate change this week, the president of the United States, Joe Biden, said something in passing: “This is not the time for small measures; we have to be bold. ”
The phrase reflects more than an attitude towards the specific challenge of the environment and could well summarize the spirit with which Biden has faced his first 10 days in the House White, with striking vertigo.
Since she took office on 20 of January, the president issued an unusual number of decrees in various areas that he considers priorities, since the coronavirus to the economy, from immigration to racial equality .
His objective, according to experts, transcends an eagerness to bury symbols and policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump.
Biden also seems determined to take advantage of the feeling of helplessness that exists in a US hit by different simultaneous crises and divided, to promote an ambitious agenda.
” There’s that honeymoon feeling, ”says Lynn Ross, a public policy professor at Georgetown University who worked for years in the US government, including the Executive Office of the President.
“It’s smart that (Biden) goes to work doing all he can, what as quickly as possible ”, Ross tells BBC Mundo.
However, the rush of the new president begins to generate criticism from the opposition and raises a question: for how long Will you keep up the pace ?
“There is no precedent”
Only during your first week at the House Blanca, Biden signed 21 executive orders, according to the Federal Register, an official government publication.
This is already more than the sum of executive orders that issued in their first week in office by the previous four US presidents, since Bill Clinton in 1994 to Trump.
If Biden’s list is added other executive actions he signed, the total already exceeds the 40.
“There is no precedent (for this) in US history: even Franklin Roosevelt, who issued more than 3, 700 Executive Orders in little more than three terms, barely issued a handful in his first 10 days ”, says Allan Lichtman, a history professor at the American University of Washington, to BBC Mundo.
Much of it of Biden’s measures have sought to reverse decisions made by his predecessor .
For example, the president ordered the US to return to the agreement of Paris against climate change and the World Health Organization (WHO), reinforced a program that protects immigrants who came to the country from deportation You are being children (known as dreamers), and ended the ban on the entry of transgender people into the armed forces, all this against Trump’s decisions.
Biden also d continued the construction and financing of the border wall with Mexico promoted by its predecessor and sought to expand access to medical care (including abortion) to “undo the damage that Trump did”, who in turn wanted bring down former President Barack Obama’s health care reform.
But in other cases, Biden’s actions have little to do with dismantling Trump measures and rather seek to fill what he considers government gaps.
For example, the president created a position of coordinator of the government response to covid – 19 and forced the use of masks on federal property, ordered the expansion of food aid programs, and placed the fight against climate change in the field of national security tional.
Biden also called for an effort in all government agencies to end “systemic racism”, with reports on the level of equity in their personnel and plans to favor equal opportunities.
The president adopted all these measures using his authority, without having to resort to the Capitol .
And, in parallel, Biden proposed to the Congress a package of economic and health relief for $ 1.9 billion dollars before the pandemic, as well as an immigration reform that opens the way for citizenship to 11 millions of people living without papers in the US
The limits of the president
In opposition ranks, some view with suspicion this wave of executive orders signed by Biden.
“@ POTUS, You can’t govern with a pen and a phone, ”Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn tweeted, addressing the president’s official account.
Democrats recall that Trump also resorted to executive orders as president: signed 220 in four years, while Obama issued 276 in twice the time.
Biden has already experienced one of the risks of governing by decree: justice can reverse his orders.
A federal judge from Texas temporarily blocked Tuesday an order from the president to suspend deportations for 100 days, while he discusses the issue.
On some issues, Biden may have broad popular support to act urgently tr as the worst US economic downturn since World War II (3.5% in 2020, according to the result published on Thursday) and more than 400 thousand deaths from covid – 19.
About eight of each 10 Americans believe that the priorities of the President and Congress this year should be to strengthen the economy (80%) and face the coronavirus (80% ), indicated a new poll by the Pew Research Center.
But on other issues on the presidential agenda, such as racial equality or the fight against climate change, the support of Republican voters falls from meaningful way.
This poses challenges to a president like Biden, who upon taking office called for the unity of the country after the deep fractures observed in the Trump administration.
Democrats in Congress have indicated that they are willing to push through the stimulus plan proposed by Biden alone, which did not sit well with the opposition .
The president’s party has majorities in both houses of Congress, but “they are so few that it is not easy to approve Biden’s priorities” and this is another reason why the president uses executive orders, observes Lichtman.
“Biden is not going to sacrifice his policies for a show of unity: if the Republicans don’t act, he will do what he thinks is good for the country,” he says. “If things work out in the end, none of the rhetoric will make one iota of difference.”
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