Day 99: On the Road
With an 85 percent approval rating on his performance at his first Presidential Address to Congress, yesterday, President Joe Biden traveled to Georgia to seal his first 100 days in a mini-series of rallies to promote his multi-trillion dollar American Jobs and American Families plans.
“It’s hard to believe that it’s already been 100 days,” First Lady Jill Biden said before introducing the president at a drive-in rally. “Back in D.C. we’re still getting to know our new home, figuring out where the light switches are and remembering to use coasters on the historic furniture,” and yet “…We’ve made historic progress.”
The White House Office of Presidential Personnel released data today recognizing the progress made in presidential appointees, alone.
“The Biden-Harris Administration put in place its Statutory Cabinet faster than any other Administration since President Reagan,” the statement read. “…Many of these Administration leaders have broken new ground. Lloyd Austin is the first Black Secretary of Defense. Janet Yellen is the first woman to be Secretary of the Treasury. Alejandro Mayorkas is the first Latino and immigrant to serve as Secretary of Homeland Security. Xavier Becerra is the first Latino to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Deb Haaland, the Secretary of the Interior, is the first Native American to ever serve as a Cabinet Secretary. Pete Buttigieg is the first openly LGBTQ person to serve in the Cabinet.”
Biden is set to nominate 233 people to Senate-confirmed positions — more than any administration has in the first 100 days — and extended the same momentum to agency leadership that does not require Senate confirmation with some 1,500 appointees, doubling the rate of previous administration in numbers and in diversity.
“[C]onsistent with President Biden’s commitment to leveraging the talent, creativity, and expertise of the American people to build an Administration that looks like America, more than half of all Biden appointees are women, and half identify as non-white — numbers that set a new bar for future Administrations,” the Office announced.
Even the requirements for diversity are diverse. “President Biden’s commitment to representation from communities that haven’t always been at the table can be seen across the federal government. At the U.S. Department of Labor — the agency on the frontlines of the crisis facing women in the workforce across the country — nearly 70 percent of all appointees are women. At the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, nearly 40 percent of all appointees are first-generation. At the U.S. Department of Education, 1 in 4 of all appointees are the first in their family to graduate from college and 1 in 3 are former educators. And at the U.S Department of Interior, 1 in 5 of all appointees are American Indian or Alaska Natives.”
Participation is an underlying theme in all of Biden’s messaging. “If we’re truly to heal the soul of America, we need to project that sacred right and protect it — to vote,” he reiterated while in Georgia, where voters ushered in the first Jewish and first Black senators in the state’s history earlier this year.
“More people voted for president in 2020 than anytime in American history ever,” Biden reminded, “and they did it in the middle of a pandemic.”
Of the remainder of his term, he said, “We’re working again, we’re dreaming again, we’re discovering again, and we’re leading the world again and you’re proving democracy can deliver for the people… and there’s nothing we cannot do if we do it together.”