In the last days of his administration, President Biden is shifting his focus to his legacy and encouraging members of his party to stay engaged.
He announced Monday a new national monument that honors the first woman cabinet secretary, Frances Perkins, who worked for 12 years as President Roosevelt’s labor secretary. President Biden advanced an executive order earlier this year that sought to strengthen acknowledgments of women’s history.
“Too many people want to ignore history,” President Biden said. “What we want to do is record history, the good bad and the indifferent. Who we are.”
But it also was her legacy as a champion for workers’ rights the president sought to lift, along with his own.
In his remarks, the President touted his own record on job creation, specifically union jobs, calling it the greatest job creation record of any single term.
“Over six million jobs so far, including 1.5 million manufacturing and construction jobs. Good paying jobs you can raise a family on and don’t have to require a four-year degree,” he said, adding, “we are so damn proud.”
Perkins is credited with establishing the National Labor Relations Act that established workers’ rights to organize, and to collective bargaining; as well as the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Social Security Act.
Biden has branded himself the most pro-union president in history and seeks to firm up his legacy with only a month left in office.
The national monument designation followed remarks at the Democratic National Committee’s holiday reception on Sunday night, where the President urged Democrats to “keep the faith,” and highlighted the work they did over the course of his administration. That work, he said, mattered.
“The one thing I’ve always believed about public service, and especially about the presidency, is the importance of asking yourself: 'Have we left the country in better shape than we found it?'" he asked. "Today, I can say, with [every] fiber of my being, of all my heart, the answer to that question is a resounding 'yes,’” the president said.
He also encouraged Democrats to not be disengaged, reminding them that the effects of legislation like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act would continue to unfold over time.
“Many of the laws we passed were so consequential it wouldn't be implemented right away. it takes time to build …. to get this construction going,” he said.
President Biden also spotlit his record on the economy in an article in The American Prospect, writing about the failed approach of trickle-down economics and arguing "that a fundamentally new playbook was essential.”
The President called out job creation measures in laws like the CHIPS and Science Act — which brought semiconductor manufacturing back to America — and cost cutting policies like Medicare’s $35 price caps on insulin in the Inflation Reduction Act.
He argues the next four years will determine whether the U.S. economy will continue to grow or revert to the old policies of trickle down economics under incoming President Donald Trump’s economic proposals.
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With just over a month left in office, The White House is pushing forward on a handful of key priorities. In a memo obtained by Scripps News, Ben LaBolt, the president’s senior advisor and communications director, said “the president has been clear to his team that we need to make every day count.”
The memo details a list of policy goals, including further action on clemency and pardons, actions on the environment, more student debt relief, new actions on Artificial Intelligence and getting more funding out the door for infrastructure projects, including high-speed internet.
The new memo following a similar list of priorities sent out by the White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients last week. That checklist includes a mandate to confirm as many judicial nominees as possible before inauguration day.
The push for more judges comes as the President promised to a veto a bipartisan bill, which cleared the house last week, which would create 66 new federal judgeships over the next three presidential administrations.
