Presidential Candidate: Joe Biden

Joe Biden Campaign website: Joe Biden for President: Official Campaign Website

By Ashley Bean Thornton

I have been summarizing the opening campaign speeches from the presidential candidates.  President Biden did not really make a speech to launch his campaign.  Instead, he released a campaign ad that doesn’t give very many specifics about his platform.  So instead of summarizing that, I have opted to summarize his 2023 State of the Union address – which seemed to me to function very much like a campaign speech.  Love it or hate it — I have tried to stick pretty close to his own words and to be fair in summarizing what I assume to be his platform for 2024. I tried to include as much about how he plans to do these things as I was able to deduce from the speech. – ABT

Here’s the link I used: https://www.youtube.com/live/gzcBTUvVp7M?feature=share

What he says he did (is doing)…

• Created, with the help of congress,12 million new jobs. More jobs created in two years than any president has created in four years.
• COVID no longer controls our lives.
• Democrats and Republicans came together to defend a stronger and safe Europe.
• Democrats and Republicans came together to pass a once-in-a-generation infrastructure law… the largest investment in infrastructure since President Eisenhower’s interstate highway system.
• Democrats and Republicans came together to pass legislation helping victims exposed to toxic burn pits.
• Democrats and Republicans came together to pass the bipartisan Chips & Science Act.
• Signed over 300 bipartisan pieces of legislation since becoming president.
• Unemployment is at a 50-year low. Near-record unemployment for Black and Hispanic workers.
• We have created 800,000 good manufacturing jobs.
• Inflation has been high worldwide due to covid supply chain issues and the war in Ukraine. Here at home, inflation is coming down, gas prices are coming down, food prices are coming down.
• Take home pay has gone up.
• Over the last two years, a record 10 million Americans applied to start new businesses.
• New standards to require all construction materials used in federal infrastructure projects to be made in America.
• With the Inflation Reduction Act …
  • Took on powerful interests to bring health care costs down including capping cost of insulin at $35 a month for seniors on Medicare.
  • Most significant investment ever in climate change ever.
  • Cracked down on wealthy tax cheats
• More Americans have health insurance now than ever in history.
• Preventing insurance companies from sending surprise medical bills, stopping $1 billion surprise bills a month so far.
• Protecting seniors’ lives and life savings by cracking down on nursing homes that commit fraud, endanger patient safety, prescribe drugs that are not needed.
• Millions of Americans can now save thousands of dollars because they can finally get hearing aids over-the-counter without a prescription.
• Signed a bipartisan bill that cut shipping costs by 90 percent, helping American farmers, businessmen and consumers.
• Signed an executive order for all federal officers banning chokeholds, restricting no-knock warrants and other key elements of the George Floyd Act.
• We now have a record number of personnel working to secure the border, arresting 8,000 human smugglers. Seizing over 23,000 pounds of fentanyl in just the last several months.
• We launched a new border plan, unlawful migration from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela
• has come down 97 percent as a consequence of that.
• The vice president and I are doing everything we can to protect access to reproductive health care and safeguard patient privacy.
• We stood against Putin’s aggression. We stood with the Ukrainian people.
• We made clear to President Xi, that we seek competition, not conflict with China.
• We are investing in American innovation, in industries that will define the future that China is intent on dominating. Investing in our alliances and working with our allies to protect our advanced technologies so they’re not used against us.
• Modernizing our military to safeguard stability and deter aggression.
• Together, we passed a law making it easier for doctors to prescribe effective treatments for opioid addiction.
• We passed a gun safety law.
• We are making historic investments in mental health.
• We launched the ARPA-H to drive breakthroughs in the fight against cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and so much more.

 

What he says he will do…

• Build an economy from the bottom up in the middle out, not from the top down because when the middle class does well, the poor have a ladder up, and the wealthy still do very well, and we all do well.
• We are going to make sure the supply chain for America begins in America.
• Let’s cap the cost of insulin for everybody at $35.
• Expand coverage of Medicaid.
• Make the wealthiest and biggest corporations begin to pay their fair share.
• Nobody earning less than $400,000 a year will pay an additional penny in taxes.
• Proposal for the billionaire minimum tax. “There’s 1,000 billionaires in America, up from about 600 at the beginning of my term. No billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a schoolteacher or a firefighter. “
• Quadruple the tax on corporate stock buybacks to encourage long-term investments.
• Close the loopholes that allow the very wealthy to avoid paying their taxes.
• If anyone tries to cut Social Security (which apparently no one is going to do), if anyone tries to cut Medicare, I will stop them. I will veto it. I will not let Medicare be taken away, not today, not tomorrow, not ever.
• Pass bipartisan legislation to strengthen antitrust enforcement and prevent big online platforms from giving their own products an unfair advantage.
• Pass the PRO Act, because workers have a right to form a union.
• Make sure working parents can afford to raise a family with sick days, paid family and medical leave, affordable childcare. That is going to enable millions more people to go to work.
• Restore the full child tax credit, which gave tens of millions of parents some breathing room and cut child poverty in half, to the lowest level in history.
• Get more families access to affordable, quality housing.
• Get seniors who want to stay in their homes the care they need to do so. Let’s give more breathing room to millions of family caregivers.
• Provide access to preschool
• Give public school teachers a raise.
• Reduce student debt and increase Pell grants
• Connect students to career opportunities starting in high school, provide access for two years of community college, the best career training in America, in addition to being a pathway to a four-year degree. Let’s offer every American the path to a good career whether they go to college or not.
• Remain vigilant against COVID. We still need to monitor dozens of variants and support new vaccines and treatments.
• Triple the anti-fraud strike force going after these criminals, double the statute of limitations on these crimes, and crack down on identity fraud by criminal syndicates
• Prevent violence
  • Give law enforcement the real training they need, hold them to higher standards, help them succeed in keeping us safe.
  • More first responders and professionals to address growing mental health and substance abuse challenges.
  • More resources to reduce violent crime and gun crime.
  • More community intervention programs.
  • More investments in housing, education and job training.
• Background checks on gun purchases for 18- to 21-year-olds and red flag laws. Keep guns out of the hands of people who are a danger to themselves and others.
• Ban assault weapons now.
• Pass comprehensive immigration reform, at least pass my plan to provide the equipment and officers to secure the border.
• Make a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, those on temporary status, farm workers and essential workers.
• Veto any attempted national ban on abortion.
• Pass the equality act to ensure LGBTQ Americans, especially transgender young people, can live with safety and dignity.
• Stand with Ukraine as long as it takes.
• Work with China where it can advance American interests and benefit the world. But make it clear, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country.
• Launch a major surge to stop fentanyl production, sale and trafficking.
• Do more on mental health, especially for our children. When millions of young people are struggling with bullying, violence, trauma, we owe them greater access to mental health care at their schools.
• We must finally hold social media companies accountable for the experimenting they are doing on our children for profit.
• Pass bipartisan legislation to stop big tech from collecting personal data on kids and teenagers online, ban targeted advertising to children, and impose stricter limits on the personal data that companies collect on all of us.
• Care for our military personnel and their families when they come home. Job training and job placement for veterans and their spouses as they return to civilian life. Helping veterans afford their rent because no one should be homeless in America, especially someone who served the country.
• Re-ignite the cancer moonshot. Our goal is to cut the cancer death rates at least by 50 percent over the next 25 years. Turn more cancers from death sentences to treatable diseases. Provide more support for patients and families.
• Protect the right to vote, not suppress that, fundamental right.
• Honor the results of our elections, not subvert the will of the people. Uphold the rule of the law and restore trust in our institutions of democracy.

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For a similar summary of Donald Trump’s speech at his Waco Rally on 3.25.23: Summary of Trump’s Waco Speech – 3.25.23 – Dead Armadillos (deaddillo.com)

For a similar summary of Nikki Haley’s speech announcing her presidential run: Summary of Nikki Haley speech announcing Presidential Run – February 14, 2023 – Dead Armadillos (deaddillo.com)