DomesticEconomicForeignOpinionPOLITICSHolding Our Own to High Standards: Joe Biden’s Policy Shortcomings

After the most tumultuous election cycle since Bush/Gore 2000 the people had officially spoken by electing our 46th president Joe Biden. Biden defeated the incumbent Trump making him the 10th one term President, a figure who is somehow one of the most loved and most hated Presidents in US history. This schism is reflective of the drastic levels of partisanship currently in our country. 

Ex-President Donald Trump didn’t do himself any favors during his Presidency by bending the rules of foriegn diplomacy, fumbling through the worst pandemic since the Spanish flu, stirring up racial tensions that haven’t been as high since the civil rights era, and feeding a mob provable false evidence to incite a riot at the Capitol building meant to intimidate lawmakers into flipping a lost election. 

So, with all that said should we be happy with Biden just because he’s not Trump or should we hold all elected officials to high standards for the sake of bettering our Country? I personally (a registered Independent) think it is the latter, so here are three reasons why I am not happy with the Biden Presidency so far and where we need to go in this pivotal moment in American history. 

Foreign Policy

I’m old enough to remember when Twitter erupted with WW3 memes after Former President Trump ordered a successful airstrike killing Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian military officer who in many ways was the most important figure in the current Middle East proxy wars in Iraq and Syria. The media labeled Trump as reckless and hysteria ensued in the public fearing that he had gone too far in this assassination when in truth was a necessary means to an end. Soleimani had paid bounties to rebels who killed American troops, American contractors, and the world is truly a safer place without him. A risky move by Trump but the correct move in the end. 

A month into the Biden administration we again had bombed a target in Syria, a Irainian backed Shia militia that had attacked and killed American contractors in the region. The media as well as the public’s perception of the situation was comically hypocritical. 

This strike came days after Biden had spoken with Saudi King Salman and most likely was a strategic “show of strength” to create some leverage to repair the Iran Nuclear Deal. Regardless, it seems like our long term plan of creating stability in the Middle East is improvised at best and the people in the middle will continue to suffer. 

Crisis at the Border

“Kids in cages” became a tagline most of Trump’s harshest critics used often in the media and the opposing campaign trail. Photo ops at detention facilities, passionate interviews, and protests were held in solidarity with the child migrants as well as the downtroughten parents that accompanied them. 

With President Biden’s victory many thought that this would change the conditions and methods of immigrant apprehension and detention at the border but it didn’t. According to the latest government data, there are more than 20,000 unaccompanied migrant children currently in US custody. 

This is following photos being leaked from the detention facility in Donna Texas at the US Border showing children lying on the floor, covered in space blankets, kept in cages serving as a bleak reminder that immigrants serve no purpose in politics aside from being pons and talking points. 

Though the number of apprehensions currently hasn’t eclipsed the numbers we saw in the Spring of 2019 it is still logical to call what’s been going on across our southern border for 20 plus years to this day nothing short of a crisis. 

Our country was built by immigrants chasing the American dream but legislation restricting asylum laws, green cards, and visas has made options bleak creating waiting lists and procedures that often take years if not over a decade for many. I think an overhaul of infrastructure with modern policies of tracking, vetting, while creating standards with goals and incentives could keep bad actors out; in effect bringing a positive immigrant working class in. 

This administration’s U.S. Citizenship Act 0f 2021 on the surface reads as outlined Infrastructure to provide pathways to citizenship but the results have yet to be seen. As sections of the wall continue to be rebuilt so do our mounting issues with illegal immigration which like our sitution in the Middle East is becoming a zero sum game. 

Broken promises 

On the campaign trail Biden made two Promises on cancelling student debt and neither has yet to be honored. So far his administration has addressed student debt by extending the pause on federal student loan payments through September and canceling some debt of borrowers who were defrauded by for-profits schools as well as borrowers with disabilities. His promise was to cancel $10,000 in student debt per person and that has yet to happen but they are said to be “working on it”, per a DOE spokesperson who spoke with Business Insider. As someone who still owes in their student loan, I am anxiously waiting for this hammer to drop if it ever does.

Biden also promised through the campaign that there will be no tax hikes for people who make less than $400,000 annually. Months after the election on March 15 White House press secretary Jen Psaki clarified that the $400,000 threshold applies to families, not individuals meaning that high middle class people with children in big cities (many who voted for Biden) will possibly be affected immediately by these raised taxes.

Taxes and Student loans aside, the big picture is just the fact of breaking your word which among many of us common folk is all we have. It speaks on incentives and intentions of this administration who isn’t afraid to use Trump as it’s forever-scapegoat for it’s own shortcomings. In the future how do you expect people to trust your party with their vote when you continuously write checks that we will never cash?

Epilogue

It is important to state that I am far from a Trump supporter and that I voted for Joe Biden but I still feel that as a country we need to hold all of our elected officials to higher standards regardless of who we are “affiliated” with. This is something that has been an issue for decades while past administrations made bad moves in the Middle East, Latin America, while synthetically pumping our “economy” for statistics and greed rather than substance for the everyday American.  All the while this has been multiplying our problems exponentially with inaction. Those issues have stuck with us and each President since has been working to patch the issue and pass the buck to the next sucker who takes office. They polerize the enemy pinning Americans vs Americans, making minor issues major distracting the public from the imminent dark future of pollution, debt, joblessness from automation, & a dwindling education system postponing this destiny that awaits us without providing any real tangible long term solutions. Biden continues in this tradition. 

 In my life I have seen the quality of leadership get worse and worse with each election cycle. Our divide between left and right is hurting us all as a whole while jack shit gets done. They collect money and power for their corporate sponsorship while we all suffer the consequences. I want there to be accountability back in the White House and I still feel that Biden is a better option than Trump but I still yearn for a country that can produce an option much better than either.