Biden has ambitious plans for first 100 days in office
President-elect Joe Biden will step into the White House on Wednesday facing an array of crises, from COVID-19 to nationwide tension surrounding racial justice.
Biden has already started rolling out his plans to take them on.
Over the past several weeks, Biden has laid out several things he wants to do in his first 100 days in office. The proposals include tackling the pandemic, reversing immigration policies put in place under President Donald Trump and addressing criminal justice reform.
On Thursday, Biden laid out a COVID-19 relief package that he hopes to see Congress pass in the immediate weeks after he takes office.
The $1.9 trillion plan includes $20 billion for a national vaccination program, $1,400 stimulus checks and raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour. Biden has also pledged to provide 100 million doses of the vaccine during the first 100 days of his administration. He has said his plan will help “stimulate the economy.”
“This will be one of the most challenging operational efforts we have ever undertaken as a nation,” Biden said Thursday of vaccine distribution.
As part of his response to the pandemic, Biden also said that he wants to begin reopening schools in the first 100 days of his administration. His relief package proposes $130 billion to help schools reopen safely.
Biden has also said in the 100-day time frame, he will also call for masks to be mandated in places “where he can under the law,” such as in federal buildings, planes and buses.
Biden has also said he will propose a new tax plan that includes raising corporate income taxes to 28%. Currently, the corporate tax rate is 21%, which was set under Trump’s 2017 tax plan.
Under his tax plan, Biden said no one making less than $400,000 will see their taxes increase, but that a 12.4% Social Security payroll tax will be imposed on those who earn $400,000 or more. The president-elect, however, has not given a timeline of when that plan would be introduced.
During his tenure, Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 Paris Agreement, which focuses on goals to help mitigate climate change.
On the first day of his administration, Biden plans to rejoin the accord.
He also pledged on his first day in office he would take actions that require “aggressive methane pollution limits for new and existing oil and gas operations.”
Trump took a hard-line approach to immigration that led to several controversial policies, including a family separation policy along the U.S.-Mexico border, which has since been halted but continues in isolated cases.
Biden has said that he will begin undoing many of the Trump administration’s immigration policies on Day One.
Biden has said on Day One he will send a bill to Congress to provide a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented people in the United States, and will revoke a travel ban on mostly Muslim-majority countries.
Within the first 100 days of his administration, Biden has said he will stop construction on the border wall at the U.S.-Mexico border by taking away funding.
Biden last year vowed that in the first 100 days of his administration, he would push to pass the Equality Act, which aims to extend federal protections in the areas of housing, education, credit and services to members of the LGBTQ community.
Amid a nationwide reckoning with systemic racism, Biden has vowed to make racial justice and criminal justice reforms a key part of his administration. In his first 100 days, Biden has said, he is committed to creating a national police oversight commission.