Joe Biden took office with many issues to tackle. High inflation, high gas prices, and Covid-19 were all passed to him when Trump left office. 2022 had its ups and downs for Biden. He was able to achieve historical legislation wins, but inflation persisted for most of the year.
Successes
Despite Democrat’s slim majority in Congress, Biden was able to push through historical legislation. He was able to introduce and pass bills designed to improve the country’s infrastructure, was able to help reduce the cost of pharmaceutical products, he also introduced legislation designed to combat climate change, and did his best to help promote gun safety and control.
He was also responsible for nominating and appointing the first African American woman to the Supreme Court. Biden was in charge of leading a multinational coalition that has consistently supported Ukraine through its war with Russia.
He made it possible for the United States to provide billions of dollars in military and humanitarian aid, including helping Ukraine with its air defense using a Patriot missile battery. “I’ve spent several hundred hours face-to-face with our European allies and the heads of state of those countries, and making the case as to why it was overwhelmingly in their interest that they continue to support Ukraine,” Biden said during a conference with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Biden has also been an outspoken supporter of bipartisan dealmaking. He was able to secure bipartisan support in both his infrastructure bill and his gun safety legislation.
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Failures
Biden and the Democrats were unable to remove the filibuster, so many of his campaign promises had to be shelved, broken, or compromised. Biden was a champion for free community college while on the campaign trail, but once he took office, it became clear that the road to free college would not be as smooth as he anticipated.
Universal Pre-K was another initiative that was shot down by the Senate. The back and forth in Congress also led to the demise of Biden’s promise to raise taxes on major corporations. The justification for not passing the bill was that the taxes would disproportionately affect small businesses instead of the billionaires who were supposed to be targeted.
Inflation was one of the biggest failures of Biden’s presidency, although the rate of inflation itself can not be wholly attributed to him. Thankfully, for the past few months, inflation has been easing off; however, it is still the highest that it was been in 40 years, and a recession is still looming.
Immigration was another big one. Biden has been fighting to revoke Title 42, but pushback from Republican states led to the Supreme Court voting to extend it. The state of the border is dismal, with many migrants stuck sleeping in tarp-covered tents with no way to keep themselves warm during the cold months.
Afghanistan was a notable failure as well. While many Americans were likely relieved to have their troops come home, many would say it was an objectively bad decision to pull out all of the troops at once.
To add insult to injury, when our troops left, they left all of the military-grade equipment and weapons, which were quickly put to use by terrorist organizations such as the Taliban.
