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Ethical and Unethical Views on US Presidency

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Ethical and unethical views on US presidency

Since being sworn to office, President Joe Biden has committed numerous executive

orders, which have caused mixed reactions both in the US and internationally. Some of the

policies include executive orders on significant reversals of specific Trump’s policies, tax

policies, and COVID-19 tackling policies. One significant reversal of Trump’s policies was the

executive order on “Establishment of Interagency Taskforce on the reunification of families,”

which many people appraised on its ethical basis. President Biden’s administration launched a

new task force that will increase efforts to reunite immigrant families separated at the US-

Mexico border through President Trump’s “Zero-Tolerance policy” on the irregular crossing.

This task force seeks to help many families in Central American communities but whose

children are in the united states. The parents would be allowed to stay in the US, given three

years of legal residency and other forms of assistance. In the three years of their temporary

residence, the parents will get passports, work permits, and other support services. This is a

human and ethical policy that many have highly appraised. However, it still has a long way to go

as many parents are believed to be in Brazil, Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala and lack

passports or any means to travel (“Executive Order on the Establishment of Interagency Task

Force on the Reunification of Families | The White House,” 2021).

The current presidency has played a great towards increasing healthcare coverage

towards working Americans. Today, families on the poverty level receive a tax credit, which

reduces their healthcare insurance on the individual marketplace. Initially, this policy benefited

people who make between 100 and 400 percent of the federal level, where many families did not

qualify for financial aid and struggled to afford health insurance. However, President Biden has

lowered the income cap for tax credit eligibility and lowered the price of exposure. Additionally,
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Mr. Biden signed an executive order that offered a range to Obamacare for those who lost it

during the epidemic and those who did not have insurance and wanted to enroll for the first time

(Silberner, 2021).

President Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda plans to raise taxes to 30 percent for

middle-class families, which is highly unethical. Collectively, the combined efforts of this policy

will lead to many households paying more taxes in 2022 while increasing taxes significantly for

high-income households. At the same time, another section of the proposal will increase the

deduction limit on local and state taxes, commonly called SALT deductions, benefiting affluent

families in high-tax states like California and New York while offering close to no benefit to the

middle class. This policy would give big-time tax breaks to the rich at the cost of overtaxing

middle-class Americans (“Every executive action Joe Biden has signed — and what they do,”

2021).

Further, President Biden’s “foreign policy for the middle class” has a weakness where it

enriches middle-class Americans at the expenditure of their complements in the developing

countries, which is highly unethical. Recently, G-20 countries passed a policy that would take

over the international corporate tax systems. This policy supports US president Joe Biden’s

foreign policy, which will cut down on multinational corporations’ ability to evade tax. As a

result, this will bring the US a great deal of revenue to fund increased government support for the

US middle class. Many corporations are presently using advanced accounting methods to invest

in countries with low tax rates, a practice that the policy will counter by raising their tax by 15

percent. But instead of sharing the returns with the countries that the business runs, the tax is

given back to the corporation’s highly unethical home country.

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References

Every executive action Joe Biden has signed — and what they do. (2021). Retrieved 28

November 2021, from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/08/joe-biden-

executive-orders#8b292c15-efcc-4cfc-8883-5a506f39e5ff

Executive Order on the Establishment of Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of

Families | The White House. (2021). Retrieved 28 November 2021, from

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/02/02/executive-

order-the-establishment-of-interagency-task-force-on-the-reunification-of-families/

Silberner, J. (2021). How Joe Biden plans to heal American healthcare. bmj, 372.