Quiet, calm - and going big: Biden's first 100 days
The daily White House melodrama of the Trump era is history, but there's been nothing quiet about Joe Biden's 100 days rushes to transform the united states he inherited.Biden will deliver a primetime address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday (Apr 28) - the eve of his first 100 days mark - with ambitions to be just about the most consequential presidents since Franklin Roosevelt and the Great Depression. At 78, he was the oldest man ever to take the job.
And facing the deadliest reported COVID-19 outbreak in the world, a badly shaken economy, and toxic divisions in the wake of four years of Donald Trump, the incoming Democrat had a mountain to climb.
But three months on, he has surprised many with his discipline, his hard negotiating edge, and most importantly hunger, as he puts it, to "go big". It's a performance that according to the latest Pew poll wins Biden a 59 per cent approval rating - well above anything Trump ever scored. Biden vowed to "heal" America and with a Covid vaccine program that last week recorded its 200th million shot, he's fulfilling the promise literally.
The US$1.9 trillion stimulus American Rescue Plan that Biden's party rammed through Congress in March likewise injected money into every corner of the COVID-19-battered economy. A post-pandemic boom is widely expected. Now Biden's pitching another splurge, a US$2 trillion-plus American Jobs Plan which would revamp US infrastructure in nearly every way, from traditional roads and bridges to broadband internet and electric car development.
