Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey brain Stuff. Lauren Boglebaum here. The minute that Joe Biden assumed presidency of the United States, the clock started taking on his first hundred days in office. Well before he was elected. Biden was promising decisive action in his first hundred days to combat the COVID nineteen pandemic, rebuild the economy, and address racial injustice and inequity. But why
the fascination with the president's first a hundred days? After all, we've elect presidents for terms of one thousand, four hundred and sixty days, So what's so important about these first three months in change? Blame f DR for the article. This episode is based on How Stuff Works. Spoke with Jonathan Ladd, Associate professor of Public policy and Government at Georgetown University. He said, we started using the term first a hundred days after Franklin D. Roosevelt first a hundred days.
FDR's first a hundred days were so productive that we've talked about it ever since. FDR came to office in ninety three. In the depths of the Great Depression, he signed seventy six pieces of legislation in his first hundred days, including fifteen major overhauls and new programs. He took the US off the gold standard, revamped the banking system, and created jobs through the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Tennessee Valley Authority. No president since has even come close to
FDR's productivity. Kennedy passed twenty six bills, Reagan just nine, Obama only eleven, but that hasn't shaken the fixation on the first hundred days. It remains a benchmark of political efficiency and a convenient measure of a new president's power. A study showed that before the nineteen fifties, the average number of laws passed during a president's first hundred days was forty six, compared with sixteen for later time periods.
In his first undred days, Biden has spearheaded some bold initiatives, including signing a one point nine trillion dollar pandemic recovery package. He's also doubled the goal his administrations set for COVID vaccinations, surpassing two hundred million vaccinations by his first hundred days instead of the original goal of a hundred million. He's also called for all US troops to be pulled from
Afghanistan by September eleventh of this year. Biden has also signed a historic sixty executive orders, memos, and proclamations, the most by any president at his first hundred days, a third of which were direct reversals of executive orders signed by his predecessor, Donald Trump. Most of those reversals undid Trump era policies on immigration, the environment, and equity. For instance, Biden revoked Trump's executive order that separated migrant families at
the US Mexico border. In an article for five thirty eight dot com, political scientist Julia Azari noted that presidents often enjoy a honeymoon with Congress during their first hundred days, making it easier to push the new White Houses legislative agenda, and the effect is strongest for presidents who confront divided government. One possible explanation for the hundred day honeymoon is that historically,
most incoming presidents enjoyed high approval ratings with voters. In those less divisive times, Senators and representatives from the opposing party would cross the aisle, is a nod to presidential popularity and more importantly, to assuage voters back home. For example, even though President George W. Bush won the two thousand election by the slimmest of margins. He was popular enough that conservative leaning Democrats helped pass his tax cut package
early in his tenure. Trump had no such luck, and Biden hasn't either. The lad said popularity matters less now because there are a lot fewer conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans than they're used to be. Plus, Trump and Biden were significantly less popular than previous incoming presidents. Trump's approval ratings at his inauguration were in the high thirties at
the hundred day mark it stood at. Biden's approval rating was on his hundred day mark significantly lower than Barack Obama or Ronald Reagan sixty eight percent at the same point in their first terms in office, and beside Trump, the only other president with a lower approval rating at a hundred days than Biden was Gerald Ford at forty eight percent. The bipartisan honeymoon of the past appears to
be over. Not one Republican member of Congress voted for Biden's pandemic relief bill, for example, and as of this writing, it's unclear whether Biden has the votes to pass its ambitious two trillion dollar Infrastructure Plan. Another reason why moral legislation often gets passed by in the first a hundred days often has to do with the political changing of the guard. When the White House in Congress are finally controlled by the same party, previously defeated bills get a
second chance at life. President Bill Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act within days of taking office. He could act so swiftly because the same bill had previously been passed by Congress and vetoed by President George H. W. Bush. The same thing happened with the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which President Barack Obama signed into law nine days after
his inauguration. If President stands, then Biden's most substantial legislative moves will come well beyond the somewhat arbitrary hundred day mark. President Lyndon B. Johnson didn't sign the Voting Rights Act until seven months into his term, and Obama didn't enact the Affordable Care Act until more than a year into his first term. Today's episode is based on the article why do we care about the first hundred Days? On
how Stuff works dot com, written by Dave Rooms. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio in partnership with how stuffworks dot com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.