Biden Pushes Failed Obama-era Policies on Day One

TOPLINE: President Biden has already moved to undo many of our economic and diplomatic gains from the past four years. Over the next 100 days, House Republicans must work to accelerate the rollout of vaccines developed under Operation Warp Speed, while resisting government overreach in the economy and elsewhere. Americans want normality, not a far-left makeover of the country.

Throughout his campaign and in recent days, President Biden outlined his many intentions — through legislation or executive orders — for his first 100 days. The plans will be familiar to anyone who spent the past several years watching the far-left pushing radical policy after radical policy through the House of Representatives. Republicans must be vocal about the extensive harm these policies will do to the American people.

CLIMATE

Radical energy policies threaten the livelihoods of millions of workers and deny affordable energy to millions more.

Revoke the Keystone XL Pipeline Permit

• The American energy renaissance proved that when America is energy independent, we no longer have to rely upon tyrants or autocratic regimes.
• The Keystone XL pipeline would safely move crude oil produced by our ally Canada to U.S refineries along the Gulf Coast.
• Energy made and moved in America creates jobs, lowers the cost of gas and electricity for low-income Americans, and advances American interests on the world stage.
• Revoking the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline is a monumental mistake that will hit working Americans the hardest and increase our reliance on dirtier imported crude from unreliable OPEC countries.
• 2,000 American workers will immediately lose their jobs, over $2 billion dollars in wages will go unpaid, and rural communities will lose $100 million in property tax revenues.

Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement

• The Paris Climate Agreement was fatally flawed from the start and that hasn’t changed.
• The agreement gives a free pass to the world’s worst polluters while throttling the American energy industry, which produces energy more cleanly and more efficiently than anywhere in the world.
• A 2017 report found that the Obama Administration’s Paris commitments would cost the U.S.A. up to 2.7 million jobs by 2025.
• We can expect even worse economic devastation as President Biden fulfills his promise to “go much further than [the Paris Agreement].”

Demand Congress Enact a Mandate for Net-Zero Emissions by 2050

• Net-zero emissions by 2050 is a hallmark of the Green New Deal.
• This plan is projected to cost 5.2 million jobs, raise household electricity prices for low-income Americans by 30% or more, and would reduce global temperatures by less than 0.2 degrees Celsius by 2100.
• This heavy-handed government mandate simply doesn’t follow the science and would stifle the American innovation that led America to see the largest absolute decline in emissions among all countries since 2000.

THE ECONOMY

Under President Biden’s economic plans, millions of workers will emerge from the pandemic to find their industries destroyed by unelected bureaucrats and heavy-handed government mandates.

Raise Corporate Tax Rate to 28%

• Despite liberal hysteria, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has been an unmitigated success for our country.
• By lowering families’ taxes, as well as the corporate tax rate, the TCJA helped Americans save money and created millions of jobs. The result was the hottest economy in decades.
• As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, a higher corporate tax rate would be a fatal blow to our fragile economy.
• Companies need to direct their resources toward rehiring and rebuilding — it’s a disgrace for the federal government to demand a greater share of companies’ revenues in this environment.

Raise the Minimum Wage to $15

• 30% of small businesses in America have closed due to COVID-19.
• At a time when small businesses are struggling to keep doors open and employees on the payroll, it is unconscionable to burden them with a dramatically higher minimum wage.
• In 2019, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that a bill to raise the minimum wage to $15 could cost up to 3.7 million jobs lost and $9 billion lost in family income.
• Businesses will close. Americans will lose their jobs. The $15 minimum wage would be a disaster for working families.

FOREIGN POLICY

At a time of increasing tensions with China and historic success in the Middle East, we must continue to project strength and independence abroad. A return to Obama’s foreign policy threatens to send us back down the path of decline.

Rejoin the Iran Nuclear Deal

• President Biden has repeatedly signaled his intention to rejoin the Iran Nuclear Deal.
• The Iran Nuclear Deal failed to end Iran’s nuclear program altogether and emboldened Iran to destabilize the Middle East. The deal was predicated upon trusting a notoriously dishonest regime while supplying them with the funds to finance terrorism across the world.
• By pulling out of the Iran Deal and asserting ourselves militarily, President Trump reestablished credible deterrence with Iran.
• Reentering the deal would permanently destroy this credible deterrence.

IMMIGRATION

America must project strength, order, and the rule of law on our southern border. Illegal immigration, mass amnesty, and porous borders are irreparably damaging to our legal immigration system.

Provide Mass Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants

• President Biden’s immigration bill provides all illegal immigrants with access to a Green Card and a pathway to citizenship.
• This is not only an insult to the millions of legal immigrants who followed the proper immigration process, but has also reportedly sparked a rush of migrants trying to cross the southern border to gain amnesty.
• As a Heritage Foundation research fellow put it, “Promise of amnesty is the single greatest public relations coup for coyotes (smugglers) imaginable.”
• President Biden’s plan also makes illegal immigrants deported by the Trump Administration eligible for temporary legal status, Green Cards, and a pathway to citizenship. This is lunacy.

Terminate National Emergency at the Southern Border

• Democrats tried their hardest to block President Trump’s efforts to secure our southern border.
• Drugs continue to flow across the border, human traffickers continue to operate, and violence continues to flare up.
• The basic facts on the southern border haven’t changed and neither should the national emergency designation.

Halt Border Wall Construction

• Walls work. President Biden knows this. Despite his intention to order a halt to border wall construction, he won’t tear down any of the existing structures on the southern border.
• This is a political move that prioritizes optics over the safety of American communities.

PRO-ABORTION POLICIES

These past four years have been a historic step forward for the life and dignity of every unborn child. America must continue to commit to the sanctity of life and we must fight against every effort to undo pro-life protections.

Rescind the Mexico City Policy

• The United States of America simply has no place funding organizations that support or perform abortions in foreign countries.
• Taxpayer funds should never be used to fund abortions here or abroad.

COVID-19

Thanks to the historic Operation Warp Speed, multiple safe and effective vaccines are being rolled out across America. These vaccines — not government overreach — will reopen and rebuild our country.

Rejoin the World Health Organization (WHO)

• The World Health Organization played an undeniable role in the spread of COVID-19.
• The United States of America — the largest source of funding for the WHO — should not participate in the WHO until there is a full accounting of the mistakes and cover-ups that allowed an isolated coronavirus outbreak to spiral into a pandemic.
• The Chinese Communist Party’s outsized influence on the WHO must be investigated and dealt with.

Pass Another $1.9 Trillion Stimulus Bill

• $350 billion bailout for state and local governments.
  • According to a study done by the Heritage Foundation, even before December’s $900B+ COVID-relief bill, “Congress has already authorized federal aid to state and local governments equal to 17 times their 2020 revenue losses and two times their expected 2020 and 2021 combined losses.”
• $400 supplemental unemployment insurance checks until the end of 2021.
  • Many workers would continue to earn more staying at home than by going back to work. Businesses won’t be able to compete and our economic recovery will slow dramatically.

BOTTOM LINE: The Biden Administration is not wasting any time in bowing to the far-left’s demands. Americans deserve sensible policies to get them vaccinated, through this pandemic, and back to work — not a government takeover that will irreversibly damage our economy and divide our nation.