As Day 100 Approaches, Biden’s Ability to Keep Promises Strained | Voice of America

Like all U.S. presidential candidates, Joe Biden spent most of last year’s election campaign making promises. As his 100th day in office approaches — a traditional, if arbitrary, milestone for assessing presidential performance — he has delivered on many of them, but fallen short on others. 

The president’s campaign promises can be sorted into three broad baskets, regardless of the policy areas in which they fall.  

There was the low-hanging fruit — things Biden really could accomplish “on Day One” with the stroke of a pen or the issuance of an order. As of April 15, Biden had signed 49 different executive orders and memoranda, far more than his recent predecessors:  Donald Trump (36), Barack Obama (34) and George W. Bush (12).  

Slightly more difficult to achieve, though still within the sole purview of the executive branch, were other policy changes and initiatives that would take some time to implement but could be achieved with no input from members of Congress. 

Finally, there were the grand promises of a transformed relationship between the two major parties. Biden said he would work to bring Republicans and Democrats together to work in a bipartisan fashion on issues of importance to the country.  

Across a wide array of policy areas, Biden quickly accomplished most of the issues in that first basket, and some in the second, but efforts to achieve bipartisan successes in Congress have almost all come up empty.