Well Done President Biden

Ken Peterson , Letter to the Editor, 09/03/2022

Editor, The Biden Administration is implementing a variety of programs that provide support for all Americans: improving our infrastructure, keeping and creating new jobs, improving our environment, protecting Veterans, making gun use safer, reducing our healthcare costs, and providing those in need with loan forgiveness. And oh yes, we will finally get large corporations, who pay little to no tax, to pay their fair share. Some of the specific accomplishments of the Biden administration, working in collaboration with all of the Congressional Democrats and with a small number of Congressional Republicans: 1. American Rescue Plan (Mar 2021):

· Addressed COVID relief with stimulus checks for individuals and Paycheck Protection Plan helping businesses maintain staff pay.

· Increased earned income and Child Dependent tax credit

2. Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Nov 2021) provides states $550B to:

· Modernize roads, bridges, railroads, airports, ports, and waterways creating around 2M jobs a year

· Install clean drinking water and broadband Infrastructure

· Install electric vehicle charging stations

3. Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (July 2022) provides $13B of support in first safer gun legislation in 3 decades:

· Supporting crisis intervention services, Family Mental Health Services, and school Trauma support

· Helping prevent domestic abusers from buying or possessing guns

· Reducing illegal gun flow in cities with new straw purchasing and gun trafficking laws.

· Holding criminals accountable for illegally evading licensing requirements

4. Bipartisan PACT Act (Aug 2022) providing healthcare benefits for veterans exposed to Agent Orange and Toxic burn piles by reducing paperwork needed to obtain disability compensation.

5. Bipartisan CHIPS Act (Aug 2022) helps retain jobs in the US by providing $52B in subsidies to semiconductor firms and $24B in manufacturing Tax Credits.

6. Inflation Reduction Act (Aug 2022) works to raise taxes on wealthy corporations and helps reduce medical costs while reducing the deficit by $300B:

· Requires Corporations pay their fair share with a 15% income tax for profits above $1B

· Funds improvement in IRS tax enforcement while not targeting families and small business making $400,000 or less

· Lowers ACA health care costs, Caps Medicare Cost of Insulin at $35/mo., Allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices and Allows Medicare to collect rebates from manufactures with prices above inflation rate

· Provides Availability of all vaccines at no copay for Medicare recipients

· Caps out-of-pocket Medicare drug costs at $2,000 in 2025

· Makes the most historic climate investment in US history: reducing carbon emissions roughly 40% by 2030 and providing clean energy tax credits of $30B for solar and wind manufacturing

7. Student Loan Forgiveness Executive Order:

· $10K forgiveness for those making less than $125K

· $20K forgiveness for the more needful Pell Grant loan recipients which is about 2/3 of all federal education loans Kudos to President Biden, Congressional Democrats, and a few Congressional Republicans! Ken Peterson