A checklist on the Biden presidency: His legislative wins and losses
CBC
Joe Biden started the summer with his presidency seeming doomed: he was unpopular, his legislative record derided as unaccomplished.
Now he's suddenly on a winning streak.
An example came Tuesday at two separate events where, in one day, he signed two significant bills into enactment: an expansion of NATO, and funding for high-tech manufacturing. That's in addition to the most notable gun legislation in decades, infrastructure funding, a veterans' bill, and, perhaps, within days, the most consequential of all:
American lawmakers are close to adopting key planks of Biden's agenda with an omnibus budget bill that includes drug-price controls and the largest federal climate plan in U.S. history.
The bad news for Biden: he's still historically unpopular, his support drained by high inflation and disillusionment over heretofore unfulfilled promises. The good news: scholars who study presidents' legislative records now place his success rate in decent historical company.
"What he's gotten is, in my opinion, significant," said James Thurber, author and founder of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies.
He describes Biden's first two years as more fertile legislatively than those of Donald Trump's, who got tax reforms but neither the health or infrastructure bills he wanted. He also sees it as more productive than George W. Bush's, whose most significant early bill was the anti-terrorist Patriot Act.
WATCH | Senate passes a legacy-shaping bill for the Biden administration:
A colleague shares Thurber's assessment that Biden's list of early legislative wins could soon be closer to those of Ronald Reagan and his massive tax cuts; Bill Clinton and his NAFTA and crime bill; and Barack Obama's stimulus bill and his health reform.
"This would be on the relative high end [among recent presidents]," said John Dearborn, author and scholar of the American presidency and Congress at Vanderbilt University.
Those analysts view Biden's successes as notable in a tough congressional context. Getting bills passed means pushing them through two evenly divided chambers, holding together every Democrat, from the socialists to the conservatives.
After a year of fits and starts, the Senate finally passed sprawling legislation in a complex process that allows a budget vote by simple majority, bypassing the higher 60-per-cent filibuster rule.
It's not everything Biden promised, and in fact, his presidency has been a reminder of how frequently campaign promises are detached from the reality of U.S. governing. Presidents don't really control Congress. What presidents can do is push ideas, convene meetings, and, importantly, get out of the way when necessary.
That's what happened in recent budget negotiations: amid near-secret talks in the Senate, Biden maintained a low profile.
