Every Biden Disappointment Through Day 1000

For the 1041st day of the Biden presidency I updated my Biden disappointment list. Please share!

President Biden did not run as a progressive, but he has struggled to complete even semi-progressive campaign promises.

Send this to anyone interested in Biden’s presidency. Everything on this list has a source. 

This list is divided into the following categories. For easy navigation, these categories are now clickable.

• Foreign Policy

• Immigration

• Domestic Policy

• COVID

• Other

A list of Biden administration accomplishments is available here

Last updated on November 27th, 2023.

Foreign Policy

-Air Strikes in Syria 

-Because of crippling US sanctions: 23 million of 39 million Afghans not having enough food to eat

-Killing 10 people in a drone strike in Afghanistan 

-Approving a $650 million potential air-to-air missile deal for Saudi Arabia 

-Biden signing a $768,000,000,000 defense budget for 2022, $37,000,000,000 more than last years budget. 

-Choosing Rahm Emanuel as the US ambassador to Japan. 

-Not sanctioning MBS 

-Approving the sale of $735 million in precision-guided weapons to Israel 

-Reaffirming the United States’s opposition to an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into possible war crimes in the Palestinian Territories. 

-The Biden administration opposing the resolution blocking weapons sales to Saudi Arabia.

-Spending more on Israel than climate change. 

-Continuing to support the Saudi Blockade in Yemen 

-Continuing the Trump Pentagon’s policy of embracing landmines.

-Continuing a Trump policy that boosted armed drone exports

-Continuing to support a coup in Venezuela

-Conditions in Guantanamo Bay being worse now than they were under Trump. 

-Killing six children in a counterterrorism raid in Syria

-Bombing Somalia

-Biden proposing a $813,000,000,000 Pentagon budget for 2023, a $31,000,000,000 increase from 2022 budget.

-Biden proposing to spend 18 times more on the pentagon than on climate programs.

-Moving to split $7 billion in frozen Afghan central bank assets between 9/11 victims’ families and humanitarian aid in Afghanistan

-Naming Michael Bloomberg as the new chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Board

-Ordering air strikes on Iran-linked targets in Syria

-Proposing sending the U.S. military to Haiti

-No longer ruling out using nuclear weapons to respond to non-nuclear threats, despite a campaign promise to do the opposite. 

-Telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamín Netanyahu “my commitment to Israel is unshakeable".

-Conducting military strikes in Somalia 

-Dropping threats to retaliate against Saudi Arabia for the oil-production cut

-Biden signing a $858,000,000,000 military budget for 2023.

-Asking Congress for the largest Pentagon budget in history for 2024

-Saying a UN vote to denounce Israel's decision to expand Jewish settlements in occupied Palestinian territory would be “Unhelpful”

-Conducting more air-strikes in Syria

-Inviting Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House despite recent anti-democracy moves

-Licensing private sales of riot control weapons and equipment to #Peru (Source in Spanish)

-Waiving a U.S. law prohibiting the production, use or transfer of cluster munitions with a failure rate of more than 1 percent, to send the munitions to Ukraine

-Nominating Elliot Abrams, who led the campaign to replace Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, to the United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy

-Selling weapons to 48 of the 84 countries classified as autocracies by the V-Dem institute.

-Increasing military spending by 20% in just three years in office

-Thousands of Afghans who fled their homes two years ago are stuck at processing sites in the Middle East and the Balkans that are run or coordinated by the U.S.

-Sending a U.S. carrier strike group closer to Israel

-Sending 300 additional troops to the Middle East.

Immigration

-Mass deportations of Haitians 

-Using Title 42 to expel 1,800,000+ people 

-Holding over 22,000 people in jails run by ICE. 7,000 more than what the Trump administration held when they left office.

-US deportations of children increasing by 30% in the first year of the Biden administration (Source in Spanish)

-Reopening previously closed “facilities” at the southern border

-Extending the Trump-era Title 42 program that expels people seeking asylum without due process.

-Continuing the Trump era "Remain in Mexico" policy and expanding it past the constraints of a court order.

-The DOJ pulling out of negotiations to financially compensate families separated by Trump admin.

-Arguing in federal court that migrant families separated at the border under the Trump administration don't deserve compensation.

-The Border Patrol horse unit

-Continuing to detain immigrants at a prison in Louisiana that’s been described by government investigators as having “a culture & conditions that can lead to abuse, mistreatment, & discrimination.”

-Considering "filling gaps" in the US-Mexico border wall.

-Kamala Harris to migrants: "Do not come. Do not come. We will enforce our laws and secure our border.” 

-The number of undocumented immigrants in detention centers increasing by more than 50% since Biden took office

-Filling immigration courts with Trump hires

-The Biden administration and ICE still having no clear plan to provide vaccine access to the more than 22,100 detained people in ICE custody.

-Continuing to seize land for the border wall 

-Joe Biden’s new budget boosting ICE funding by $18 million. 

-Blocking media access to their border operations. 

-Continuing to house immigrant children in inhumane conditions. 

-Backing an effort to overturn a California law banning for-profit immigration detention centers, 

-Asking for $8.1 billion for ICE in his 2023 budget proposal, a 13% increase from 2022 and higher than the highest amount Trump ever spent on ICE.

-Continuing the use of ICE’s 287(g) program despite campaign promises. 

-Continuing to hold children in prison-like conditions at the southern border.

-Continuing to use, and defend in court, a Trump-era State Department rule that requires nearly all visa applicants to register their social media handles with the U.S. government.

-Authorizing completion of the Trump-funded U.S.-Mexico border wall in an open area in southern Arizona near Yuma.

-Expelling nearly 4,000 Haitians on 36 deportation flights in May — a significant increase over the previous three months.

-Expanding the use of Title 42 to send Venezuelans back to Mexico

-Considering holding Haitian migrants at Guantánamo Bay.

-Allowing Customs and Border Patrol agents to fire rubber bullets at migrants

-ICE holding 31,000 immigrants, the most since 2020

-Sending 277 deportation flights to Haiti, which deported 27,000 people, including children.

-Continuing family separation at the border 

-Considering implementing Trump-era immigration law 

-Appealing a court ruling that ended Title 42

-Enacting a Trump-era Asylum "transit ban"

-Expanding Title 42 to 5 more countries

-Moving to restart Trump-era rapid-Asylum screenings

-Seeking a border deal with Mexico to allow U.S. authorities to carry out large-scale deportations of non-Mexicans to Mexico

-The CPB One app leading to Family Separation at the border

-Considering reviving family detention at the border

-Quietly resuming deportations to Russia

-Vetoeing offering temporary protected status in the U.S. to 400,000 Nicaraguans due to concerns over a “border surge.”

-Arguing in court that lawsuits filed by families separated at the border by the Trump Admin should be tossed because the family separation policy was "adopted" for "perceived humanitarian considerations."

-The DOJ is doing nothing to stop red states from subjecting would-be migrants to kidnapping, cruelty, and other gross violations of human rights.

-Reopening a housing facility for unaccompanied migrant children previously at the center of reports of poor living conditions

-Deploying an additional 800 troops to the border.

-Deporting thousands of Venezuelans and building more of Trump’s border wall

Domestic Policy

-Only canceling student debt for those making $125,000 a year

-Cutting federal unemployment benefits to make unemployment numbers look better.

-The Biden administration approving 3,091 new drilling permits on public lands. He’s approving these permits at a higher rate (332 per month) than President Trump (300 per month).

-The Biden Administration asking the Supreme Court to rule that federal agents cannot be held accountable for retaliating against protected speech

-Naming Neera Tanden the White House staff secretary

-"Vigorously" defending an exemption to anti-LGBT discrimination laws for religious schools.

-Sending more military equipment to American neighborhoods than Trump did. 

-Supporting a Supreme Court decision that blocked immigrants in the U.S. on humanitarian grounds from getting permanent residency if they entered illegally 

-Continuing the Trump-era practice of labeling Black Lives Matter protesters as terrorists. 

-Lying about a court decision, that despite initial claims, did not force the Biden admin to hold the largest-ever auction of oil and gas drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico’s history.

-Fully supporting states that cut supplemental UI benefits

-The DOJ urging SCOTUS to reinstate the death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, despite President Joe Biden’s stated opposition to capital punishment per Reuters

-Allowing oil to continue to flow through the Dakota Access Pipeline

-Not ordering the Pentagon to recall the billions in military gear it loaned to police. 

-Offering to keep 2017 Trump tax cuts intact in infrastructure counteroffer to the GOP 

-Defending a huge Trump-era oil and gas project in the North Slope of Alaska despite President Biden’s pledge

-Defending excluding Puerto Ricans from disability payments 

-Settling on a 25% corporate tax rate

-Auctioning off more than 80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling companies

-Issuing 31 new drilling permits on federal land 

-Their "National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism" 

-Giving in to Republicans' demands on broadband infrastructure spending by reducing broadband spending by $35 billion. 

-Nominating a lawyer who represented Exxon in a suit against the treasury department for a major treasury department role. 

-Looking to extend a Trump-era policy that bolsters mandatory minimum drug sentences. 

-A federal program that allows teens, 18 to 20, to drive big rigs in a test program designed to ease driver shortages.

-Continuing to fill top Pentagon positions with defense contractors

-Biden choosing not to take sides in the debate over whether Congress should prohibit members and their families from trading individual stocks while in office.

-Keeping Trump hires in the Department of Justice

-Urging the Supreme Court to let cops enter homes and seize guns without a warrant 

-Not passing a promised $15 minimum wage 

-Not passing a promised $2,000 stimulus to all individuals 

-Not officially banning the death penalty

-Not legalizing marijuana

-Saying “We should all agree: The answer is not to Defund the police. The answer is to FUND the police” at the State of the Union.

-Resuming oil and gas drilling on federal lands

-Refusing to take any of the recommended pro-union actions by the White House Task Force on labor.

-Saying that he’s not looking to cancel more than $50,000 of student debt

-Looking to means test student debt relief

-Refusing to use his existing authority to lower insulin prices.

-The Biden Administration doubling down on their defense of a for-profit college giveaway made by Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

-Continuing to urge for the end of remote work.

-Taking a bankrupt cancer patient to court, days before she begins a series of surgeries that might leave her permanently disabled, to contest her claim that she cannot pay $96k in student loan debt.

-The Biden administration expanding its employee conduct guidelines to potentially deny security clearance to individuals who have invested in companies that are involved in the marijuana business.

-The White House Climate Policy office stalling climate initiatives by placing political considerations and relations with Congress ahead of climate action.

-Endorsing a plan to funnel significantly more Medicare money to insurance companies and further privatize Medicare.

-Reaffirming his decision to enact the highest Medicare premium hikes in history.

-Fighting to stop a federal lawsuit that would enshrine a constitutional right to a livable climate.

-Urging states and cities to use unspent money from last year’s $1.9 trillion Covid relief package to fund crime prevention programs and hire police officers.

-Not declaring a climate emergency

-Not backing off plans to nominate an anti-abortion attorney to a lifetime federal judgeship in Kentucky.

-Nominating a longtime advocate of Social Security privatization and benefit cuts to the board overseeing the Social Security system.

-Not canceling student debt of borrowers with privately held federal student loans, despite initially promising to during the original student debt cancellation announcement in August.

-Saying once again “I'm not going to change anything in any fundamental way.”

-Approving plans to build the nation’s largest oil export terminal off the Gulf Coast of Texas.

-Forcing rail workers to accept a labor contract that didn’t include sick days, and urging congress to not give them any

-Denying a petition to protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales

-Outpacing President Trump for new Oil and Gas drilling permits

-Federal subsidies to Police reached a 10-year high in 2022, with more than $4.5 billion from the DOJ and DHS.

-Refusing to mandate that trains carrying hazardous and flammable materials have updated electronic brakes because of pushback from the Rail industry.

-Requiring patients to see a doctor in person before getting attention deficit disorder medication or addictive painkillers

-Approving the massive Willow Oil Project

-Refusing to lower the price of $189,000 a year cancer drug 

-Defending a Mining Project that will destroy a sacred Apache religious site

-Auctioning off an Italy-sized chunk of the Gulf of Mexico for Oil and Gas drilling

-Death Row inmates seeing no meaningful changes to the Justice Department’s approach under Biden compared to President Trump

-Refusing to veto a GOP-led resolution opposing the new DC crime bill

-Telling car manufacturers not to comply with a Massachusetts right-to-repair-law

-Signaling its opposition to a case challenging the constitutionality of the debt ceiling.

-Quietly halting a policy that requested American think tanks disclose funding from foreign governments.

-Attempting to block a landmark climate lawsuit by declaring that “there is no constitutional right to a stable climate system”

-Announcing a plan to sell as many as three offshore oil and gas leases over the next five years.

-Awarding $334 million in grants to help local law enforcement agencies hire new officer

-Proposing narrowerer student debt relief

COVID

-CDC guidance shortening the quarantine time during positive COVID tests.

-The Biden administration rejecting the 10-page "Testing Surge to Prevent Holiday COVID Surge" plan.

-Banning travel to several South African countries for a month due to the Omicron COVID variant.

-Free COVID tests taking 7-12 days to ship.

-Only Americans who are privately insured being able to seek reimbursement for over-the-counter COVID tests they purchase.

-The Biden administration claiming they support a COVID vaccine patent waiver, but failing to take meaningful action to pass such a waiver.

-Allowing the COVID death toll to surpass 1,000,000 people

-Changing the CDC COVID spread maps to make it seem that COVID infections were slowing

-Failing to meet the administration’s commitment of donating 1.2 billion vaccine doses in 2022.

-Announcing that they will stop buying COVID vaccines, treatments, and tests as early as this fall

-Lying about the reason they ended the free COVID testing program

-Prematurely saying the Pandemic is over on 60 Minutes

-Saying nursing homes and hospitals no longer need to require universal masking

-Moving from daily to weekly COVID-19 surveillance data

-Retiring the CDC’s “Find Free Mask” program

-Dropping recommendations that shelters require indoor masking

-Ending the national COVID public health emergency in May 2023

-Shutting down its covid response team in May 2023

-Announcing that he would not veto a Republican-led bill that would end the COVID national emergency

Other

-Biden's DOJ continuing to defend Trump in the defamation case that accuses him of raping journalist E. Jean Carroll 

-Building a second courtroom for war crimes trials at Guantánamo Bay that excludes the public from the chamber.

-Granting Navient a two-year, $391M extension on its contract to collect federal student loans.

-Backing away from a promise of free college/university tuition for students for families making less than $125,000

-Using a helicopter rotor wash to try to clear out activists from an occupied Line 3 pump station north of Park Rapids.

-Dozens of young Biden White House staffers have been suspended, asked to resign, or placed in a remote work program due to past marijuana use

-Jill Biden announcing an unveiling of a Nancy Reagan stamp on the first day of Pride Month.

-The DOJ arguing it would be “dangerous to trust regular marijuana users to exercise sound judgment” with guns.

-Federal law enforcement arresting 25% more people for cannabis-related crimes during 2021, compared to 2020.

-Biden deviating from CDC COVID Guidance following a positive COVID test and then getting a rebound infection.

-Visiting Saudi Arabia in a push to lower oil prices.

-Failing to declassify a U.S. intelligence report on the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, despite a government panel recommending its release to the public.

-Saying Democrats wouldn’t be able to pass abortion-rights legislation just days after the midterms 

-Protecting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from punishment for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi

-Naming Joe Kennedy III as the U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic Affairs

-Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has a cozy relationship with a corrupt meat company

-Withdrawing the nomination of a law professor because he called Israel an apartheid state

-Supporting Norfolk Southern's attempt in the Supreme Court to overturn a law that allowed a Railroad worker with cancer to sue the company.

-Not vetoing the GOP resolution rolling back criminal code changes passed by the D.C. Council.

-Allowing Eric Adams to join Biden’s “National Advisory Board”

-Nominating a federal judge with an anti-abortion past

-Arguing in court that asylum-seekers who had their personal information posted online are not entitled to sue DHS for monetary damages because they are not U.S. citizens.

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