According to Fox News, “President Biden’s first 100 days in office were marked by fierce debates on Capitol Hill over the rollout of progressive policy initiatives that have drawn comparisons to those enacted by his Democratic predecessors Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.

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The massive $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill known as the “American Rescue Plan” – decried by Republicans for its price tag – proved to be only a starting point for the Biden administration. The president moved forward with a series of executive actions and legislative proposals meant to reshape the country’s economic and social structure, including a two-part, $4 trillion tax-and-spend proposal centered on physical — and societal — infrastructure projects.

While Biden’s proposals are part of “an aggressive, progressive agenda” compared to recent presidential predecessors dating back to the 1970s, they are likely to be less transformative to the role of the federal government than Roosevelt’s “New Deal” or Johnson’s “Great Society,” according to Brooks Simpson, a presidential historian and professor at Arizona State University. With the Democrats holding a razor-thin majority in Congress, the most progressive elements of his plan will likely be tempered by GOP opposition and moderate members of Biden’s own party. . . .

Biden’s agenda has drawn criticism from prominent Republicans who have accused his administration of abandoning its own call for bipartisanship. The president’s longtime friend, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, has described the Biden White House as a “totally left-wing administration” and accused Biden of campaigning as a centrist, only to pursue partisan policy goals once elected. . . .

While much of Biden’s first few months in office were consumed by the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic, the White House has moved quickly to address policy goals he outlined on the campaign trail.

Biden utilized executive orders to unwind several Trump-era immigration policies, including federal funding for the border wall and a loosening of restrictions for asylum claimants. He issued executive orders meant to establish limited gun control measures and address climate change.

His administration has expressed support for a Democrat-backed voting rights overhaul known as the “For The People Act.”  . . .

The first phase of Biden’s $4 trillion spending package, dubbed the American Jobs Plan, is projected to cost $2.2 trillion and include investments for both physical infrastructure projects, such as roads and bridges and a variety of social programs, such as jobs training and care for elderly and disabled Americans. . . .

The second phase, dubbed the American Families Plan, is projected to cost $1.8 trillion and calls for the creation of a universal preschool program, an expanded child tax credit, tuition-free community college and other social welfare measures. . . .

Biden’s proposals, while ambitious in scope and scale and denounced by Republicans, are similar to efforts undertaken by past presidents who faced crises during their terms in office, according to Matt Dallek, a political historian and professor at George Washington University. . . .

At the same time, the Biden administration is taking a more aggressive approach than the president’s longtime political ally, former President Obama. . . .

Criticism of Biden’s political agenda isn’t limited to Republicans. Prominent progressives within the Democratic Party, including Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have argued that many of Biden’s proposals don’t go far enough to address the country’s economic and social crises. . . .

Biden’s willingness to abandon elements of his agenda popular with his party’s far left, such as the call to cancel all student debt or tack on a provision raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour in a COVID-19 relief bill, indicate that his agenda is more pragmatic than some GOP critics claim, according to Simpson.

Even with the use of budget reconciliation rules that would allow passage of legislation by a simple majority vote, the Democrats must stay united in order to pass Biden’s agenda without GOP support. . . .

According to National Review, “President Biden’s address to Congress connected only intermittently with reality.

On his telling, every good thing that has happened in America since he took office — from vaccination to job creation — is a tribute to his wisdom, rather than a continuation of a trajectory set beforehand. All presidents say such stuff, and they all get away with it, although Senator Tim Scott made a valiant attempt to correct the record. Worse was the dishonesty of Biden’s sales pitch for his policies.

He insinuated that the ten-year ban on assault weapons had reduced the murder rate in the U.S. — something neither careful studies nor a casual look at the trends supports. He pretended that the Trump administration had ended successful efforts to control migration across our southern border, a brazen inversion of the truth. He claimed that the country supports federal legislation that would, among other things, ban states from verifying voters are who they say they are. Poll after poll says otherwise. He promised that Medicare could save hundreds of billions of dollars by cracking down on drugmakers. Not according to the Congressional Budget Office, it can’t.

Biden conjured a world in which there was no danger from unprecedented deficit spending, no possible adverse consequences from raising taxes on corporations and rich people, no spike in violent crime that needs attending, and no foreign threats that demand of us more than platitudes about leadership.

Even as he proposed one of the most radically Left policy agendas in American history, he continued to feign an eagerness to work with Republicans.  . . .

The implication is that a COVID recovery he has done little to cause is buoying him, while his agenda threatens to pull him down. Biden is providing Republicans plenty of material to work with, and nothing to intimidate them. . . .

According to The Daily Signal, “President Joe Biden delivered his first address to a joint session of a downsized Congress on Wednesday night, nearly 100 days into his presidency.

Biden spoke to only 200 masked lawmakers in the spacious House chamber, even though most, if not all, members of Congress have been vaccinated for COVID-19 and federal health guidelines don’t require such masking and distancing precautions.

The president fist-bumped senators and representatives on his way to the podium, where he delivered his address as Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sat behind him, keeping their masks on.

“One hundred days ago, America’s house was on fire,” Biden said early on. “We had to act.” . . .

Here’s a look at seven instances where setting the record straight may help those evaluating the speech.

1. ‘Protect the Sacred Right to Vote’

“And if we are to truly restore the soul of America, we need to protect the sacred right to vote. More people voted in the last presidential election than ever before in our history—in the middle of one of the worst pandemics ever. That should be celebrated. Instead it’s being attacked.”

About 160 million Americans voted in the presidential election in November, a record number, USA Today reported.

But conservatives say the left is out to nationalize elections by giving the federal government control over local and state elections, what the president apparently meant when he said voter turnout is “being attacked.”

Congressional Democrats’ legislation, which they call the For the People Act, would override states’ authority to conduct their elections, mandate “no fault” absentee ballots, and make it easier “to commit fraud and promote chaos at the polls through same-day registration,” according to a backgrounder from The Heritage Foundation.

Democrats’ legislation, known in the House as HR 1 and in the Senate as S 1, also would mandate that states allow 16- and 17-year-olds to register to vote. This move, “when combined with a ban on voter ID and restrictions on the ability to challenge the eligibility of a voter … would effectively ensure that underage individuals could vote with impunity,” Heritage’s paper says. . . .

The legislation also would provide taxpayer money for candidates for federal office, require nonprofits to disclose donors, mandate that states allow voter registration on Election Day, allow felons to vote, and allow ballots to be counted outside voters’ home precincts. . . .

Biden is partly correct on this point. An Associated Press poll in April found that about half of those surveyed said they support expanding access to early and mail-in voting, which HR 1 and S 1 would do.

However, the legislation also would eliminate most state voter ID laws, which require anyone who wants to vote to first show a recognized form of identification. . . .

2. Tax Cuts ‘Added $2 Trillion to Deficit’

“Look at the big tax cut in 2017. It was supposed to pay for itself and generate vast economic growth. Instead it added $2 trillion to the deficit.”

In his speech, Biden pushed for tax increases for high earners and corporations, and took a shot at the tax reform law passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump just before Christmas 2017.

As noted in an analysis last month published by The Daily Signal, the Trump tax cuts did not pay for themselves. But the tax cuts were not the cause of the budget deficit.  . . .

Annual budget deficits primarily are the result of a systemic gap between revenues and expenditures resulting from sustained growth in mandatory spending programs since the 1970s.  . . .

The projected annual deficit in 2030 is bigger than the entire 10-year cost of the Trump tax cuts from 2017.

After the tax cuts, the economy grew, the labor market improved, and wages increased by more than a percentage point in the two subsequent years, resulting in annual wages of more than $1,400 above trend for production and nonsupervisory workers.

New job openings increased in 2018, and about 83,000 more Americans voluntarily left their jobs for better opportunities at the end of 2019 and before the COVID-19 pandemic struck in early 2020.

According to data from the Internal Revenue Service, Americans in every income group benefited from lower effective tax rates, which dropped 1.4 percentage points in 2018.

The tax cuts that took effect in 2018, as a percentage of taxes paid in 2017, were largest for the lowest-income Americans and smallest for the top 1% of earners. This means high-income Americans now pay a larger share of income taxes than they did before the Trump tax cuts.

3. Corporations Must ‘Pay Fair Share’

“I will not impose any tax increases on people making less than $400,000 a year. … We’re going to reform corporate taxes so they [corporations] pay their fair share—and help pay for the public investments their businesses will benefit from.”

Between 75% and 100% of corporate tax increases are passed onto workers through lower wages and less investment, according to past analysis from Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Tax Analysis, and the Congressional Budget Office.

These estimates indicate that, even without tax hikes for “people making less than $400,000 a year,” they would be affected by higher taxes on other Americans.

4. ‘Epidemic of Gun Violence’

“[So-called ghost guns] are homemade guns built from a kit that includes the directions on how to finish the firearm. The parts have no serial numbers, so when they show up at a crime scene, they can’t be traced.”

Biden, noting that he already has called for a ban on “ghost guns,” asked Senate Republicans to close loopholes on background checks to purchase a gun and again ban high-capacity magazines.  . . .

Gun crimes actually are down from the early 1990s, when Congress passed several gun control laws, according to the Pew Research Center.

Amy Swearer, a legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, wrote:

Neither regulating ‘ghost guns’ nor making gun owners pay a $200 tax for pistol arm braces meaningfully addresses root causes of gun violence. These actions are, in fact, far more likely to turn responsible gun owners into felons than to prevent a single gun death.

5. ‘Add Millions of Jobs’

“[The American Jobs Plan] creates jobs to upgrade our transportation infrastructure. Jobs modernizing roads, bridges, and highways. Jobs building ports and airports, rail corridors and transit lines.”

Despite Biden’s calling his proposal an infrastructure bill, less than 6% of the spending in it would go to building or repairing roads, bridges, and other projects typically associated with infrastructure, according to a Fox News analysis.

Referring to a White House summary, the Fox News analysis said the proposed American Jobs Plan, with a price tag of over $2 trillion, would spend only $115 billion to modernize bridges, highways, and roads.  . . .

The proposal includes hundreds of billions in other spending, such as $400 billion for home-based elder care; $35 billion for climate change research; $50 billion for “research infrastructure” at the National Science Foundation; and $213 billion for “home sustainability” and public housing.

6. ‘Vaccinating the Nation’

“We’re vaccinating the nation … After I promised 100 million COVID-19 vaccine shots in 100 days, we will have provided over 220 million COVID shots in 100 days.”

Biden did surpass his initially stated goal of a million vaccine doses given per day. However, according to a Washington Post analysis published two days after Biden’s inauguration, the Trump administration already was closing in on that target with nearly 1 million vaccinations administered per day.  . . .

The Post analysis noted “greater manufacturing certainty and the increased pace of inoculations in the final days of the Trump administration.”

The Post added:

Even with vaccine shortages and bottlenecks in delivery, the pace needed to meet the new administration’s goal—1 million doses administered per day—was already achieved [Jan. 22] and four other days of the previous eight, according to Washington Post data. The accelerating speed of the program undercuts assertions by some Biden advisers that they were left no plan by the Trump administration and suggests they need only to keep their feet on the pedal to clear the bar they set for themselves.

7.  ‘American Families Plan’

“We add two years of universal, high-quality preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old in America. … And then we add two years of free community college.”

Studies cast doubt on the effectiveness of government-funded prekindergarten programs.

In 2012, for example, a Department of Health and Human Services study of Head Start tracked 5,000 3- and 4-year-old children through the end of third grade. The study found the program had little to no impact on parenting practices. . . .

Regarding “free” community college, England tried and discarded the idea of taxpayer-funded college after three decades encompassing the 1960s through the 1980s. Officials there determined that the program hurt low-income students when colleges capped enrollment. . . .

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(Excerpted from National Review, Fox News, and The Daily Signal. Photo Credit: The White House Flickr.)