The Biden administration is desperately trying to shift focus off the chaos in Afghanistan and President Joe Biden's plummeting approval ratings as the 2022 elections loom by gearing up to tackle a number of Biden's unrealized campaign promises from his Build Back Better Agenda.
Officials are reportedly aiming to roll out a number of new economic policy items this fall as Congress works toward passage of a bipartisan infrastructure compromise and a Democrat-backed plan that total $5 trillion in new government spending.
The hefty figure includes $1.2 trillion for the bipartisan deal and $3.5 trillion for the second, which has no Republican support in Congress.
Biden's infrastructure deal, which would dramatically reshape federal spending priorities if passed, does not include a number of causes the president championed on the campaign trail.
Those include promises to alleviate student loan debt, creating a first-time home buying credit and slashing prescription drug prices, the Washington Examiner reports.
'The president and his whole team are proud of and are fighting for the substance of his Build Back Better agenda, which is fully paid for by asking big corporations and the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share and by empowering Medicare to negotiate lower prices with pharmaceutical companies,' an official told the outlet.
In an ABC News/Washington Post poll released released on Friday, 51 percent of Americans said they disapproved of Biden's performance, a nine-point jump from June.
His approval rating was just 44 percent. Gary Langer, the director of polling at ABC News, said 'only two presidents have had a lower approval rating at this point in their terms: Donald Trump, at 37 percent in August 2017, and Gerald Ford, also 37 percent, in March 1975.'
Biden officials are reportedly getting ready to announce a number of new progressive policy items as the 2022 election looms (pictured: President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden walk between tombstones as they leave St. Joseph on the Brandywine Catholic Church in Wilmington Saturday)
Biden's disapproval fell to an all-time low in the final days of the US's withdrawal from Afghanistan
Officials also claimed enacting Biden's unprecedentedly progressive economic agenda would reduce inflation and reduce barriers for entering the labor force 'without adding to the deficit.'
Some of the president's wishlist items have already come to fruition over recent weeks.
The Department of Education forgave $6 billion in student debt for Americans with permanent disabilities on August 19, affecting nearly 400,000 people.
On Wednesday the administration directed the Treasury and Housing and Urban Development Departments to boost the supply of affordable rental units as well as single-family homes and two to four unit properties, among other measures to expand housing access.
But those measures went largely unnoticed in the news cycle as Biden earned bipartisan criticism for the US's dramatic exit from Afghanistan at the end of August.
The last military jet left Kabul on August 30, leaving behind up to 200 American citizens and thousands of special immigrant visa applicants to the Taliban's mercy.
Administration officials have repeatedly sworn the evacuation effort is not over but rather transitioned into a 'diplomatic mission.'
