border wall since signed contracts related to construction will still have to be paid out. Republicans have complained that Biden is wasting taxpayer dollars by halting construction on the U.S. But the president has also faced substantive criticism from both the left and right about some of the early orders. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee scoffed in a tweet, you can’t govern with a pen and a phone.”ĭemocrats have, by and large, welcomed Biden’s orders as a necessary salve to deal with some of Trump’s most divisive policies. Not surprisingly, some Republicans have complained about Biden’s early reliance on executive orders. Bush signed 291 over his eight years in office and Barack Obama issued 276. Bill Clinton had 364 orders over two terms, George W. To be sure, modern presidents from both parties have been heavy users of executive orders - and have been criticized by the opposition party. Trump himself had issued an order reversing an Obama action that laid the groundwork for transgender people to serve openly. Many of Biden’s orders during his first days in office are directly related to the pandemic - a mask mandate on federal property, an executive order providing guidance on safely reopening schools and stopgaps intended to increase food aid and protect job seekers on unemployment because of the virus.īut Biden has also used executive action to try to wind the clock back more than four years to the Obama presidency.įor example, Biden issued an order reversing a Trump-era Pentagon policy that largely barred transgender people from serving in the military. Time is of the essence for Biden, who vowed as a candidate to act quickly to get the coronavirus pandemic under control and undo what he considers the damage done by Trump’s policies. But executive orders - and their policy sausage-making siblings, the proclamation and political memorandum - can also be used by a president to push policy objectives that the leader can’t get through Congress. Many are innocuous, such as giving federal employees the day after Christmas off. Presidents going back to George Washington have issued thousands of directives to manage federal government business, according to data collected by the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Biden has done that repeatedly during his first days in office as he looks to chip away at Trump policies over a gamut of issues, including environmental regulations, immigration policies and the government response to the coronavirus pandemic. A new president may overturn a predecessor’s order by issuing another executive order effectively canceling it. Congress can’t just pass legislation to overturn an order, but it can use legislative action - such as cutting off funding - to gum up the president’s intentions.
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