President-elect Joe Biden and his transition team are preparing for an early, all-out push to pass an ambitious new stimulus bill, while also drawing up plans for a flurry of executive actions aimed at delivering on campaign promises and undoing the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine key government agencies.
Biden will be inaugurated in January with a pressing mandate to confront simultaneous and interwoven public health, economic and racial crises. At the same time, his team will take over the work of spearheading one of the most complicated, politically fraught mass vaccination campaigns in American history.
Biden’s agenda for his first 100 days in office will, according to both those close to him and outside groups in contact with his top aides, center on two key avenues of action:
- The passage of a broad economic aid package
- A series of executive actions aimed at advancing his priorities where legislation is not necessary.
Containing the Covid-19 pandemic, launching an economic recovery and tackling racial inequality are his most urgent priorities, transition officials say.
The scope of stimulus legislation will likely turn on the results of the Senate run-offs in Georgia in early January, a little more than two weeks before Biden is inaugurated.
If either Democrat fails to unseat their GOP incumbent rivals, and the body remains under the thumb of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, Biden’s ambitions will be checked from the outset. The immigration legislation Biden said he plans to send to the Congress within his first 100 days would likely be dead on arrival.
But sources familiar with internal discussions stressed that getting a grip on the surging coronavirus crisis is far and away Biden’s top concern. Until that happens, one of the sources said, the President-elect’s wider legislative agenda is likely to take a backseat.
Read more here about Biden’s priorities in the early days of his administration.