Most of President Joe Biden’s signature legislative packages have been enacted throughout his first two years in workplace as Democrats managed Congress.
President Joe Biden will go away workplace on Jan. 20 having signed quite a few signature legislative agenda gadgets into regulation.
Most of his legislative wins, nonetheless, have been throughout his first two years in workplace, between January 2021 and January 2023, because the Democrats had management of each the Senate and Home.
The next payments will probably be remembered as a part of Biden’s presidency. The primary two have been handed underneath a mechanism referred to as reconciliation, which permits Congress to cross laws pertaining to taxing, spending, and the nationwide debt in an expedited method. Reconciliation payments aren’t topic to filibuster within the Senate, and the scope of amendments is restricted, giving them a bonus.
American Rescue Plan
Biden’s first main laws was a $1.9 trillion invoice in 2021 to supply COVID-19 reduction to companies and Individuals. The invoice included one-time $1,400 stimulus checks to these underneath a sure revenue threshold, relying on their family standing.
The invoice included quickly elevating the kid tax credit score to $3,600 for these underneath 6 years previous and $3,000 for these between the ages of 6 and 18. It additionally raised the earned-income tax credit score from $543 to $1,502.
Moreover, it prolonged the interval of emergency federal unemployment complement checks via September of that 12 months and elevated weekly unemployment checks by $300.
Republicans criticized the invoice for its price ticket and mentioned it contributed to growing inflation.
Methods and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) mentioned in a 2022 assertion the invoice introduced “catastrophe penalties.”
“If President Biden received’t heed Republican warnings concerning the inflationary impression of his spending, maybe he’ll hearken to the tens of thousands and thousands of Individuals residing underneath the crushing burden of the very best spike in costs in forty years,” Smith mentioned.
Inflation Discount Act
The 2022 invoice included a whole bunch of billions of {dollars} in measures associated to local weather issues, prescription drug prices, and taxes. The Biden administration has touted it as the biggest climate-related funding in American inexperienced vitality.
The Inflation Discount Act was initially to be referred to as the Construct Again Higher Act. It addressed Biden’s major marketing campaign guarantees reminiscent of combating local weather change.
The laws included tax credit on electrical autos and different inexperienced vitality merchandise. It instituted a 15 % tax on sure firms.
It capped the price of insulin co-pays at $35 for seniors.
Notably, no Republicans supported the invoice.
The Republican-controlled Congress is anticipated to repeal not less than elements of the regulation.
Home Price range Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Tex.) blamed the laws for being behind “excessive vitality and medical payments, together with skyrocketing Medicare half D premiums for seniors, an financial system teetering on recession, and the very best nationwide debt in our nation’s historical past.”
Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation
Throughout his first presidency, President Donald Trump promised main infrastructure laws. His efforts didn’t come to fruition till Biden took workplace and signed a $1.2 trillion invoice to deal with America’s infrastructure points.
When it got here to Trump wanting infrastructure laws, the principle challenge for a lot of conservative Republicans was that its $1.5 trillion price ticket was cost-prohibitive and that elevating the federal gasoline tax was a nonstarter. By 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic had precipitated Congress to shift its priorities towards addressing financial and different points surrounding the virus.
Formally often known as the Infrastructure Funding and Jobs Act, the invoice allotted $365 billion to the Federal Freeway Administration, $107 billion to the Federal Transit Administration, $102 billion to the Federal Railroad Administration, $25 billion to the Federal Aviation Administration, and billions of {dollars} extra to different businesses.
Eight Republicans supported the invoice within the Home, whereas 19 Republicans voted for it within the Senate.
PACT Act
This regulation, which overwhelmingly handed the Home and Senate and was enacted in 2022, expanded reduction for navy veterans who’re victims of poisonous chemical compounds and burn pits.
The Promise to Deal with Complete Toxics (PACT) Act was “maybe the biggest well being care and profit enlargement” within the historical past of the Division of Veterans Affairs, in line with the company.
The laws runs via 2032.
Fiscal Duty Act
This laws suspended the debt ceiling via January 2025, although the debt ceiling—which is the restrict of how a lot america can borrow to pay its payments—isn’t anticipated to be reached for just a few months. The precise timing is unsure.
This 2023 invoice was the results of negotiations between former Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Biden.
Extra Democrats than Republicans voted in opposition to the measure, which included, amongst quite a few issues, clawing again unspent COVID-19 reduction funds.
Electoral Rely Reform and Presidential Transition Enchancment Act
Biden’s presidency will without end be linked with the occasions of Jan. 6, 2021, and subsequently, this 2022 measure. The bi-partisan invoice reformed the Electoral Rely Act, which units the time, date, and procedures for Congress to certify the election.
Biden signed the measure—as a part of an omnibus invoice that included funding the federal government—reflecting one in all his marketing campaign themes: preserving American democracy.
The invoice was handed in response to objections raised by Republican lawmakers throughout the certification of Biden’s 2020 election victory on Jan. 6, 2021, by which pro-Trump supporters breached the Capitol, inflicting an hours-long delay.
The laws to reform the certification included growing the brink for the variety of members to object to a state’s electoral faculty certification—one-fifth of the members of each Home and Senate—along with the variety of senators that must log out on an objection. Beforehand, only one member of the Senate and the Home wanted to object in writing to particular person state returns to set off a vote on the objection.
No objections have been raised throughout the Jan. 6, 2025, certification of President-elect Donald Trump’s 2024 electoral victory.
CHIPS and Science Act
In 2022, Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act, a measure meant to spice up the manufacturing of microchips in america as a part of an effort to compete with, versus counting on, China, in the case of vital semi-conductor manufacturing.
Twenty-four Republicans supported the measure within the Home, whereas 17 Republicans voted for it within the Senate.
The White Home mentioned the regulation would “strengthen American manufacturing, provide chains, and nationwide safety, and spend money on analysis and growth, science and expertise, and the workforce of the long run to maintain america the chief within the industries of tomorrow, together with nanotechnology, clear vitality, quantum computing, and synthetic intelligence.”
Forward of the election, Home Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) mentioned that elements of the regulation could be repealed if Republicans received unified management of Washington.
“There may very well be laws to additional streamline and enhance the first function of the invoice—to remove its expensive laws and Inexperienced New Deal necessities,” Johnson mentioned in an announcement.