Executive Action Sprint
Critical Analysis
What story does the chart tell?
On his first day in office, President Biden signed 17 executive actions. It’s not unprecedented for world leaders to get to work on day one, but the number of directives on Biden’s desk is much higher than usual. It took his recent predecessors weeks to sign 17 executive orders. Trump, Obama, Bush, and Clinton signed four executive orders or memos on their first day—combined. Describe how Biden compares to his most recent presidential predecessors.
Why do you think Biden is outpacing his predecessors in numbers of executive orders?
What will be one political consequence of Biden’s increased use of executive orders.
An executive order is a signed, written, and published directive from the President of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. How is that different from a law?
Why do presidents use executive orders instead of just getting laws passed?
How is an executive order different from a presidential memo?
Given that Biden’s party has control of the House and the Senate do you think he will use the executive order as much as if he was President during divided government?
Considering the current makeup of the U.S. government, why is impeachment less of a threat to Biden than to his immediate predecessor?
Given the flurry of Biden executive orders on day 1, do you think Biden will be an effective president?
Do you agree with President Biden’s first executive order: Executive Order-Protecting the Federal Workforce and Requiring Mask-Wearing.
If you could write an executive order for Biden to sign what would the subject of the order be?
Learning Extension
Browse all of President Biden’s Executive Orders. Then listen to this audio report on his day 1 executive orders.
Action Extension
Contact President Biden and let him know what you think about his Executive Orders.
Visual Extension
Do yourself a huge favor and listen to the Inaugural poem read by Amanda Gorman, age 23.
