Biden's To-Do List Starts with Orders  01/19 06:09

   Joe Biden has given himself an imposing to-do list for his earliest days as 
president and many promises to keep over the longer haul.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Joe Biden has given himself an imposing to-do list for 
his earliest days as president and many promises to keep over the longer haul.

   Overshadowing everything at the very start is Biden's effort to win 
congressional approval of a $1.9 trillion plan to combat the coronavirus and 
the economic misery it has caused.

   But climate change, immigration, health care and more will be competing for 
attention --- and dollars. Altogether Biden has laid out an ambitious if not 
always detailed set of plans and promises across the range of public policy.

   Drawn from a review of his campaign statements and a recent memo from Ron 
Klain, who'll be his chief of staff, here's a sampling of measures to expect 
right away, around the corner and beyond:

   WEDNESDAY, after the inauguration, mostly by executive action:

   --- Declaration that the U.S. is rejoining Paris climate accord.

   --- Declaration that the U.S. is rejoining World Health Organization.

   --- Ethical standards for his administration and an order prohibiting 
interference in the operations of the Justice Department from other parts of 
government.

   --- Start of a process to restore 100 public health and environmental rules 
that the Obama administration created and President Donald Trump eliminated or 
weakened.

   --- Start of a process to rejoin the deal restraining Iran's nuclear program 
in exchange for sanctions relief.

   --- Executive action to end travel restrictions on people from a variety of 
Muslim-majority countries.

   --- Executive action to protect from deportation people who came to the 
country illegally as children.

   --- Executive action to make masks mandatory on federal property and when 
travelling out of state. Others will be asked to wear masks for 100 days.

   --- Steps to extend pandemic-era restrictions on evictions and foreclosures.

   --- Legislation to go to Congress proposing to repeal liability protections 
for gun manufacturers and tightening some other aspects of gun control.

   --- Immigration legislation to go to Congress as part of an effort to offer 
a path to citizenship for 11 million people in the U.S. illegally and to codify 
protections for people who came illegally as children.

   --- Education Department to be asked to extend the existing pause on student 
loan payments and interest for millions with student debt.

   ___

   THURSDAY

   --- Executive action laying out new steps to expand virus testing, protect 
workers and set new public health standards.

   ___

   FRIDAY

   --- Directive to agencies to take unspecified immediate action to deliver 
economic relief from the pandemic.

   ___

   BY FEB. 1

   --- Executive actions to strengthen "buy American" provisions.

   --- Executive actions to address climate change.

   --- First steps to expand access to health care, for low-income women, women 
of color and other segments of the population.

   --- First steps to reunite families still separated at the Mexican border.

   ___

   BEYOND (some may be tried sooner)

   --- Ensure 100 million vaccines have been given before the end of his first 
100 days.

   --- Ensure 100 federally supported vaccination centers are up and running in 
his first month.

   --- Expand use of the Defense Production Act to direct the manufacture of 
critical pandemic supplies.

   --- Win passage of a $2 trillion climate package to get the U.S. to net-zero 
carbon emissions by 2050.

   --- Seek passage of a "Medicare-like public option" to compete alongside 
private insurance markets for working-age Americans; increase existing premium 
subsidies.

   --- Eliminate certain corporate tax cuts where possible, by executive 
action, while doubling the levies U.S. firms pay on foreign profits.

   --- Make a plan within 100 days to end homelessness.

   --- Expand legal immigration slots.

   --- Freeze deportations for 100 days, then restore the Obama-era principle 
of deporting foreigners who are seen as posing a national security threat or 
who have committed crimes in addition to the crime of illegal entry, thereby 
pulling back the broad deportation policy of the Trump years.

   --- Halt financing of further construction of the wall along the Mexican 
border.

   --- Within 100 days, establish a police oversight commission to combat 
institutional racism by then.

   --- Reinstate federal guidance, issued by Obama and revoked by Trump, to 
protect transgender students' access to sports, bathrooms and locker rooms in 
accordance with their gender identity.

   --- Ensure taxes are not raised on anyone making under $400,000.

   --- Restore Obama-era rules on campus sexual misconduct and a policy that 
aimed to cut federal money to for-profit colleges that left students with heavy 
debt they can't pay back.

   --- Support legislation to make two years of community college free and to 
make public colleges free for families with incomes below $125,000, with no 
repayment of student loans required for people who make less than $25,000 a 
year and, for others, no repayment rate above 5% of discretionary income.

   --- Support increasing the national minimum wage to $15.

   --- Try to win passage of a plan to spend $700 billion boosting 
manufacturing and research and development.

   --- Establish a commission to study expanding the Supreme Court.

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