New President, New Direction

We all know talk is cheap, much more so in the political arena.  What politicians say, especially to their avid supporters in their respective Primaries, is whatever they think such folks want to hear.  The politician usually tempers those statements a bit for the General election, to try to garner support from less avid voters.  But to gauge what a politician REALLY thinks is best done by evaluating ACTIONS, not words.  We now have a few days to evaluate our 46^th President, Joe Biden.  What does he really think?  What direction does he really want to take the US?  With a limited sample of a couple of days’ Executive Orders, I think I see some indications.  Let’s dig.

First, let’s list the summaries of President Biden’s 17 Executive Orders:

1.  Sexual equality, including transgenderism
2. The US will immediately rejoin the Paris Agreement for Climate Change
3. The President will immediately revoke licensing for the Keystone XL Pipeline
4.  Biden cancelled former President Donald Trump’s 1776 Commission
5. Eliminate the Trump travel ban from know sponsors of terrorism countries
6. Cancel funding for the Southern US Border Wall
7. Extend deferrals of deportations of undocumented aliens
8. Reverse Trump policy regarding expansion of immigration enforcement
9. Protecting DACA recipients, as implemented via EO from Barack Obama
10. Remove Trump’s policy of not counting illegals on the US Census
11. Install a 100 day mask mandate for all on Federal property
12. Rejoin the World Health Organization, which Trump had abandoned
13. Require Executive Branch employees to sign an ethics pledge
14. Extend a pause on Student Loan interest and payments, due to COVID-19
15. Create a COVID-19 Response Coordinator position
16. Extend an eviction and foreclosure moratorium, due to COVID-19
17. Improving and modernizing regulatory review
    
    

Items 2 and 3 alone will cost US taxpayers BILLIONS of dollars, as the US is the primary funding mechanism of the Paris Agreement.  While the US was not a party of the agreement, the US lowered emissions more than any other country in that time.  And the two largest polluting countries, China and India, are somehow exempt from any real standards.  Closing the Keystone Pipeline not only immediately ends thousands of jobs (construction at the moment), it guarantees more expensive delivery methods for Canadian crude oil to refineries to Texas and Louisiana, which are inherently much more expensive (pipeline costs are around $10/Barrel, where shipping is around $30/Barrel).  Both will result in higher consumer prices. 

The immigration items (5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10) are all reducing or eliminating current deterrents on illegal immigration.  Most notably, item 6 reverses a policy that was working quite well to stem Southern border crossings.  Item 9 is curious, as it was established under EO by Obama, attempted to be limited by Trump, and now fortified by Biden.  Note that this is NOT enforcement of existing law—Congress has yet to successfully pass any type of immigration reform regarding the children of illegal immigrants, brought to the US under no control of their own.  By definition, this should not be under the purview of EOs at all, since EOs are intended to be enforcement clarifications of existing laws, not create new laws.  By this reasoning, if we allow law creation via EO, we no longer need Congress (or the Legislative Branch at all).  Remember:  the President is the head of the Executive Branch, not the Legislative.

The very first order has already been met with immediate concern and anger, as it allows biological males to enter women’s locker rooms, showers, and bathrooms, if they identify as female.  It allows them to enter women’s sports programs—effectively ending female participation in such programs.

Item 4 is interesting, in that it was an attempt to steer elementary history classes to view American History as viewing the US in a positive light, rather than negative.  No reason was given for stopping that commission in its tracks.  The report from that commission is available, but apparently will not be implemented.

Back to the first paragraph of this article.  The direction thus far of the Biden Administration is now quite clear:  as much as Trump was ‘America First’, Biden is ‘America Last’.  Not a single item above benefits the US, other than some small minorities (transgenders and illegal immigrants).  These EOs are negative impacts to the US, especially the US taxpayers.  So, now we know—regardless what was said, we know what they are DOING.  It will be interesting to see if this trend continues, or was just an anti-Trump burst.  We shall see.