Biden's "Progressive" Accomplishments

Biden failed to be a real progressive, but he did get a few good things done.

This list was last updated on January 20th, 2022 (day 730 of the Biden presidency), anything in italics is new from the previous version published in June 2022.

President Biden did not have a particularly progressive first 700 days, but he did do a few things that should make progressives happy. Everything on this list has a source.

• Canceling $500 million in student loan debt for 18,000 former ITT Tech students defrauded by the now defunct for-profit college. 

• Removing the Hyde Amendment from his budget proposal.

• Withdrawing $37 million in financial support from a planned dam in Honduras at the urging of activists. 

• Ending the use of 2 ICE jails

• Significantly increasing the number of vulnerable asylum seekers allowed to cross the border without open cases, up to 250 a day from 35 a day

• Increasing the refugee admission cap to 125,000.

• Sending at least 20 million doses of FDA-authorized coronavirus vaccines abroad by the end of June

• Protecting gay and transgender people from sex discrimination in health care, reversing a Trump-era policy.

• Withdrawing a Trump-era proposal to expand the collection of DNA and other biometrics from people applying for or sponsoring immigration benefits.

• Withdrawing all US troops from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. 

• Ending long-term family detention

• Issuing a policy that sharply limits the immigrants whom ICE officers can arrest at courthouses

• Launching an "internal review to address the threat of domestic violent extremism within the Department of Homeland Security."

• Extending the federal student loan pause

• Fully forgiving the student loan debt of 72,000 borrowers who were defrauded by colleges.

• Sharing up to 60M AstraZeneca COVID vaccine doses with the world

• Last-minute language being added to the stimulus bill blocking GOP governors from using federal money to subsidize their plans to slash taxes on the rich and corporations

• Sending specific raw materials required for India’s vaccine production

• Announcing free lunches for all students through the 2021-22 school year.

• Signing an executive order to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour for hundreds of thousands of federal contractors.

• Allowing separated families the option of being reunified either in the U.S. or in their country of origin.

• Restoring National Monuments in Utah, and the Marine National Monument in the Atlantic Ocean to the areas and protections that were in place prior to President Trump

• Repealing the global gag rule, which bars the federal government from offering U.S. aid to any foreign health organization that also offers or provides information on abortion services. 

• Ending the DOJ’s private prison contracts

• Increased food stamp benefits because of the pandemic through an executive order. 

• Protecting DACA through executive order 

• Revoking oil and gas permits in all national wildlife monuments through executive order.

• Protecting Tongass National Forest, from development, mining, and logging

• Canceling the Keystone Pipeline project through executive order 

• Starting the clemency process for "non-violent drug offenders on CARES Act home confinement with four years or less to serve.”

• Telling the U.S. Supreme Court that he thinks low-level crack cocaine offenders should be among the beneficiaries of a federal law that reduced certain prison sentences, reversing the position taken under Trump.

• Ordering U.S. government agencies to immediately stop financing new carbon-intensive fossil fuel projects overseas.

• Ending the practice of holding undocumented migrant families in detention centers and turning to remote tracking technology as alternatives.

• Announcing a plan to distribute 500 million free at-home rapid tests to Americans.

• Announcing a plan for free Covid tests through USPS

• Announcing a plan to distribute hundreds of millions of N95 masks at pharmacies and other sites.

• Setting up a free phone line to order COVID tests.

• Biden’s NLRB being extremely friendly to unions

• Ending Title 42

• Canceled about $5.8 billion in student loans for more than 560,000 borrowers who attended schools operated by the fraudulent Corinthian Colleges

• Accepting 100,000 Ukrainians refugees fleeing war

• Canceling $6.8 billion in student loans through the Public Loan Forgiveness Program.

• Canceling the student loans to over 200k students who were defrauded by ITT Technical Institute.

• Canceling $10,000 of student debt for individuals making less than $125,000 ($20,000 for pell grant recipients) 

• Pardoning everyone with prior federal offenses of simple marijuana possession and initiating the process of reviewing how Marijuana is scheduled under federal law

• Making it easier for millions of workers to be classified as employees rather than independent contractors

• Asking Ukraine to be more open to negotiations with Russia

• Asking shelter officials across the U.S. to ensure that pregnant migrant girls in federal custody have access to abortion services.

• No longer fighting federal student loan borrowers attempting to have their debt eliminated through bankruptcy if they prove they are unable to repay their loans.

• Extending the Student Loan payment pause 

• Restarting the free COVID at-home testing program despite budget shortfalls 

• Setting more progressive climate-related rules for federal contractors 

• Expanding an Asylum parole system to 3 new countries

• Increasing exceptions to Title 42

• Issuing 6 new pardons in 2022