Biden’s last-minute orders won’t save his legacy

In the twilight of his presidency, Joe Biden has been working at a furious pace to enact policies that would burnish his legacy — apparently determined to wring every drop of potential from his remaining time in office.

Where has that sense of urgency been for the last two years?

Biden's first two years in office were marked by bold, ambitious, often bipartisan legislation. The American Rescue Plan, with its nearly $2 trillion stimulus and extended unemployment benefits, started the task of righting the nation's economy. That was followed by the bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the largest in history; the Inflation Reduction Act; and the CHIPS Act, which boosted domestic semiconductor manufacturing. He passed the first major gun reform in nearly 30 years and he set a record for job creation.  

But at the 2022 midterms, Republicans gained narrow control of the House and Biden lost some of his ability to push legislation through. After deciding in April 2023 to run for reelection, the pressures of campaigning crowded in. When it came to governing, Biden seemed to take his foot off the gas. Immigration reform stalled. It wasn't until June 2024 — with immigration by then an obvious political millstone — that Biden finally issued the orders that would send border crossings plummeting. 

Now, after a crushing November defeat, Biden seems driven to act to secure his legacy.  That legacy would not be so fragile if he had acted more quickly; any of the rules he has pushed through since the election might have provided bragging rights during the campaign — for himself, for Vice President Kamala Harris, or for down-ballot Democrats. And more important, they would have done real good for the country — a country Biden sincerely loves, as was evident in his 18-minute farewell speech.

In the short weeks following Election Day, Biden has banned medical debt from being included on credit reports, a boon to millions of Americans whose ratings have been hurt by crushing medical bills. He issued a rule capping bank overdraft fees; created new national monuments protecting tribal lands; and issued an executive order blocking 625 million acres of offshore areas from oil and gas drilling. 

His FDA even lowered the amount of nicotine in cigarettes. And as of this writing, he was still seeking to bar companies from paying sub-minimum wages to disabled workers in so-called sheltered workshops, although he may have run out of time on that one. As late as Friday, Biden released a startling announcement that the Equal Rights Amendment was ratified and that the most popular — and costly — weight-loss drugs would be covered by Medicare price negotiations. 

Some of his post-election moves are clearly efforts to Trump-proof what he can. For example, Biden recently extended deportation protections to roughly 1 million immigrants in the US under the Temporary Protected Status program, knowing full well that Trump hopes to eliminate the program and just days before Trump is set to begin mass deportations. He also rushed through another nearly $6 billion in aid to Ukraine and announced he was removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, easing economic penalties on the tiny nation and reversing a Trump action from 2021. (Trump's response has been a tart, "Fear not, these 'orders' will be terminated shortly.")

But on these, too, there was no need to wait. Many of these policies, properly communicated to voters, would have been popular among Democrats and independents. At the very least, they would have shown a fighting spirit — and a level of energy that Biden often struggled to project in the later part of his presidency.

In particular, Democrats paid a steep political price for the inexplicable delay on Biden's immigration orders. The border patrol recently announced earlier this month that apprehensions at the southern border had fallen 70%. That's lower than at the end of Trump's first term. But it came too late to help Harris, who throughout her short-lived campaign was hobbled by her inability or unwillingness to criticize Biden's record.

Patrick Lechleitner, outgoing director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said recently that Biden should "absolutely" have done more earlier in his term. The agency could have detained and removed more individuals "over the last four years," said Lechleitner, who has been with the agency more than 20 years.

Some of Biden's lack of major new achievements in the latter part of his presidency may be attributable to Biden's bipartisan impulses — and Republicans' reluctance to give their political adversary any victories in the run-up to 2024. His most enduring achievements have come through his willingness to work with the other side. Passing the bipartisan immigration bill would have been preferable to an executive order, but once Trump killed that effort, Biden should have acted more quickly on his own.

Or maybe it's as simple as this: There's nothing like a deadline to focus the mind. Knowing his legacy is on the line, and reluctant to leave office without a resolution to the war in Gaza, Biden this week was finally able to announce an 11th-hour cease-fire. To his credit, Biden's team worked with Trump's team at what one senior Biden official said was an "almost unprecedented" level of cooperation for two rival administrations.

Whatever the reason, the two months of cramming-for-the-final action show that Biden remains a complex and somewhat tragic figure — capable of greatness, yet ultimately falling short. 

In his speech Wednesday night, Biden told Americans, "We must keep pushing forward, and push faster. There is no time to waste." If only he had spent more of the last two years taking his own advice.

Patricia Lopez/ Bloomberg Columnist

Patricia Lopez is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy. She is a former member of the editorial board at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where she also worked as a senior political editor and reporter.

Disclaimer: This article first appeared on Bloomberg, and is published by special syndication arrangement