President Joe Biden just finished his first year in the White House. However, the Biden administration failed to implement many of its promised plans. The ongoing Corona virus epidemic, economic difficulties and the steps that created chaos in foreign policy made Biden lose points in public confidence surveys. What has the Biden administration accomplished, what mistakes has it made? VOA Turkish compiled the first year of the Biden administration with expert opinions.
As Americans struggled to cope with the Corona virus pandemic, they went to the polls and elected Democratic candidate Joe Biden as president. It has been exactly one year since President Biden was sworn in with a message of unity and hope.
Biden was elected with promises that he would heal partisan divisions in the country, end the relentless epidemic, and get the economy back on track. But on many of these promises, hopes of progress waned.
The Brookings Institution, one of the influential think-tanks of the USA, discussed Biden’s one year in the White House. Elaine Karmack, the Institute’s expert on election and public policy, outlined the problems Biden faced as he entered his second year in office.
“There’s been a lot of bad news for the Biden administration in recent months,” Kamarck said. Inflation is at its highest in 40 years. The scourge of COVID is endless. Conflict continues with the Democratic Party’s progressive base over a better bill for the social infrastructure package. He failed to persuade critical senators to pass the Suffrage bill. She also experienced failures in the Constitutional Court regarding the necessity of vaccination and the right to abortion. And on foreign policy, the withdrawal from Afghanistan was embarrassing and chaotic. There is tension between Russia and Ukraine. “Within a year of the Biden presidency, it looks like he’s left hopes behind and disappointed,” he said.
‘Management hurt itself’
While some of these issues seem beyond the administration’s control, William Gallston, a domestic policy adviser to former President Bill Clinton, disagrees. Gallston, a senior fellow in Public Administration Studies at the Brooking Institution, said most of the problems were caused by the Biden administration hurting him.
“The American bailout plan, the first bill they passed, was about twice as big as it should have been given the economic problems, as many experts said at the time. Some economists said this bill would be inflationary. This law may not be the only cause of inflation, but it has already poured gasoline on a smoldering fire. The president knew from the start that the social infrastructure package and the suffrage bill should be made on the basis of only Democratic members of Congress. So the deliberation within the Democratic Party was certainly critical. But the President unwisely delegated these negotiations to the Congress leadership, which proved inadequate for the task. He wasted time doing what should have been done from the very beginning. And if you look at the two most important things to the American people, namely COVID and inflation, a number of members of President Biden’s own COVID transition Task Force, his administration put all their eggs in one basket, the vaccination, forgot to stockpile testing kits, sufficient high-quality masks. heavily criticized for As for inflation, the administration first denied that this happened, then said that scattered areas are regional, then said inflation is temporary. And finally, almost a year later, he began to acknowledge the real problem. Meanwhile, prices at grocery stores and gas stations rose, and the American public became increasingly angry that the administration seemed not to focus on what was before their eyes. “I think the Biden administration made serious mistakes in its first year and it urgently needs a course correction.”
Of course, in the first year of the Biden administration, there are a number of achievements, including a massive $1.9 million COVID relief package and a bipartisan infrastructure package.
He provided 500 million doses of vaccine to the public. He has appointed more judges to federal courts than any president since Ronald Reagan.
‘Some of his achievements remained behind the scenes’
John Hudak, a public administration expert at the Brookings Institution, says Joe Biden hasn’t been able to publicly communicate some of his achievements.
Hudak said: “The President has had some real successes, some very obvious, some behind the scenes. While there was some controversy over the extent of the President’s American bailout plan, it did deliver money to Americans in need. He provided services to Americans in need. It provided tax relief to families, which made a significant difference in reducing child poverty. After a very turbulent process in Congress, but with the Democratic votes, an infrastructure bill was passed again. Behind the scenes, he dealt with public service challenges. Many issues were settled, whether it was vaccination mandates or the power to categorize federal employees and the power of political actors to fire them. He did things that didn’t make much headlines, but had a significant impact in the end,” he said.
Hudak, on the other hand, criticized the Biden administration for blaming Democratic senators instead of Republicans for the blows it took in Congress. The public administration expert said that under-reporting about how the Republicans are blocking the administration sends the wrong message to the American public.
Joe Biden has re-established relations with America’s allies, which he fell out with under President Trump. But there were also a series of crises. The immigrants who flocked to the southern border of the USA were one of them.
‘Immigration issue is annoying for the administration’
Gabriel R. Sanchez, one of the institute’s immigration policy experts, argued that the issue of immigration generally reflects President Biden’s first year in office.
“The year started with great optimism among immigration advocates,” Sanchez said. In fact, on his first day in office, the president shut down a series of Trump administration’s immigration policies by strengthening the protection of youth illegally brought into the country and limiting domestic sanctions. But that was light-years away. Unfortunately, the administration has struggled to cope with the unexpected influx of immigrants, including unaccompanied children, coming to America. And I think the optimism has quickly turned into criticism, and the administration doesn’t seem to be able to regain voter confidence on this issue. It’s clear that Republicans are working really hard to bring the immigration issue into the focus of the midterm elections, by describing Biden as ‘the president who left the country’s borders open’. “I think this is particularly troubling for the Biden administration because at the end of the day, most of Trump’s immigration policies last through the first year.”
‘Afghanistan lost points’
With the resurgence in COVID cases, the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in the last month of last summer with loss of life was the biggest crisis that made the Biden administration bleed due to foreign policy.
Elaine Kamarck said, “Judging the poll scores, public confidence in Biden dropped sharply at the end of August. And I think it has to do with the perception of whether Biden is competent. We thought we had chosen a really experienced leader who didn’t get things wrong. “But I think the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan really impacted Biden’s overall approval ratings,” he said.
Against Afghanistan, Russia’s handling of its growing aggression on the Ukrainian border and its global rivalry with China has been seen as a plus by the Biden administration, at least for now.
William A. Gallston said, “I think the Biden administration is at its best in dealing with China. Management has a plan from day one. They are executing this plan. They strengthen our alliances in the Asia Pacific region. They made an important decision about nuclear submarines bound for Australia, and overall the administration has strengthened the sense that America has significant interests in the region and is ready to engage in defense and our growing allies in the region in the planning and execution of that defense. Unless Xi Jinping and the Communist Party of China intensify their military crackdown on Taiwan, we won’t know what all this means, but it will be a crisis. “On the European front, I think the administration has again done a very professional job of involving allies in the discussions about what to do against Russia’s challenge to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he said.
Biden wants to make his administration forget his failures and sign the victory declarations in the Congressional midterm elections next November.
However, it is also known that in America, the party of the incumbent president almost always lost seats in midterm elections. With the Democrat Party narrowly prevailing in both houses of Congress, Biden’s uphill struggle in his first year in office could get tougher in the second.