75% Americans back Joe Biden's policy changes via executive orders, 68% want him to focus on Covid-19: Survey
President Joe Biden has been criticized by various quarters, especially the conservatives, over signing a lot of executive orders in a very little time after taking office last month. His critics said before getting elected as the president, Biden said that he was not in favor of ruling by executive orders for he believes in democracy. He was accused by his opponents of betraying his own words post the results of the election.
But a recent survey has come up with findings that will leave Biden and his supporters elated. In January, Invisibly carried out the poll to understand how people perceived the way policy changes should be enacted and the issues on which Biden should focus during his first 100 days in office. The Realtime Research survey tool discovered that 75 percent of the people backed the use of executive orders to bring policy changes on major issues. On the other hand, 63 percent of the people would like to see policy issues be resolved through a mix of executive orders and legislation approved by both the congressional chambers. Besides, 68 percent of the respondents wanted Biden to focus on the Covid-19 pandemic during his first 100 days in office. In comparison, only 13 percent said the focus should be on climate change while 11 percent said social justice and seven percent -- foreign affairs.
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Party-wise support for executive orders
When broken down in terms of party-wise support for executive orders, the survey found 38 percent of the (strong) Democrats favoring use of the orders to make policy changes for the pandemic and social justice issues. In the case of the (strong) Republicans, it was only nine percent. Among the Independents, 43 percent backed the idea of using executive orders to bring in policy changes for climate change as against 25 percent Dems wanting the same. In the GOP camp, it was again as low as nine percent. However, it was interesting to see that the Democrats, Republicans and Independents were okay with executive orders on foreign affairs, with all three having at least 19 percent support for the same.
The report said: “We show that Americans overwhelmingly agree that the pandemic is the most important issue for Biden to focus his attention on during his first 100 days in office. This agreement holds true across all political parties. Most respondents claim to support executive actions to enact policy change. However, this might be influenced by the majority of the respondents identifying as Democrats.”
As mentioned above, the majority of the respondents of the survey said the best way to resolve major policy issues is to have a mixture of the executive actions and legislation by both the chambers of the Congress. But when one looks more closely, the Democrats are found to be supporting the mixed solution more than the Republicans. Only 50 percent of those who are leaning toward Republicans favor a mixed solution of executive orders and congressional legislation. The others only support one or the other way to resolve major policy issues. Only 42 percent of those who identify themselves as strong Republicans back the mixed approach while the majority only favor executive orders or congressional legislation to solve major policy issues.