Biden tells nation there is hope after devastating year
Joe Biden dit à la nation qu'il y a encore de l'espoir après une année catastrophique
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Les 100 premiers jours de Joe Biden à la Maison Blanche.
En seulement 100 jours, Joe Biden semble avoir remisé l’ère Trump au placard. Il y a quelques semaines, le nouveau président parvenait à faire voter un plan de relance de 1,9 trillions de dollars, visant à remettre le pays sur pied. Campagne de vaccination, réouverture des écoles, augmentation du pouvoir d'achat : découvrez comment le nouveau président offre aux Américains l'espoir d'un renouveau...
Seeking to comfort Americans bound together by a year of suffering but also by “hope and the possibilities,” President Joe Biden made a case to the nation Thursday night that it could soon put the worst of the pandemic behind it.
2. “While it was different for everyone, we all lost something,” Biden said, speaking a year after the nation began confronting the coronavirus in earnest. He then offered a turning point of sorts after one of the darkest years in recent history, one that would disrupt nearly every aspect of society and politics.
3. With the stimulus bill about to give the economy a kick, the pace of vaccinations increasing and deaths decreasing, Biden said Americans were on track to return to a semblance of normal life by July 4 as long as they took advantage of the chance to get vaccinated and did not prematurely abandon mask wearing, social distancing and other measures to contain the virus. “July 4th with your loved ones is the goal,” he said.
4. Biden did not mention his predecessor, Donald Trump, but his address drew sharp contrasts to him, repeatedly citing the need to tell the American people the truth, appealing for unity, celebrating the accomplishments of science and calling for continued vigilance against a virus that he said could still come roaring back.
5. “Just as we were emerging from a dark winter into a hopeful spring and summer is not the time to not stick with the rules,” Biden said. “This is not the time to let up.”
THE 4TH OF JULY
6. In putting a date, however cautiously, on the calendar, Biden also offered something intangible: hope to Americans who have endured a year in which more than half a million of their fellow citizens have died from
“Finding light in the darkness is a very American thing to do. In fact it may be the most American thing we do, and that’s what we’ve done.” - Joe Biden
the coronavirus, millions of jobs disappeared, schools closed and many people felt essentially locked in their homes for long periods.
7. The speech followed Biden’s signing of the stimulus package, the American Rescue Plan, into law. Among its many other provisions, the plan provides some $130 billion to assist in reopening schools.
8. “This historic legislation is about rebuilding the backbone of this country,” Biden said to reporters who had gathered in the Oval Office, “and giving people in this nation, working people, the middle-class folks, people who built the country, a fighting
chance.”
9. One of the most easily digestible parts of the plan will take effect in days. Direct payments of up to $1,400 per individual are scheduled to arrive in the bank accounts of Americans as early as this weekend, said Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary. Expanded federal unemployment benefits will be extended.
10. The legislation provides the largest federal infusion of aid to the poor in generations, substantially expands the child tax credit and increases subsidies for health insurance.
Restaurants will receive financial help and state governments will get an infusion of aid.
11. The president and his advisers said that the urgency of getting direct payments into the hands of low- and middle-income Americans, reopening schools and lifting children out of poverty was worth the cost, financially and also politically.
MORE CHALLENGES
12. There are significant challenges. The country remains deeply divided, politically and culturally. In his speech Biden condemned a spate of anti-Asian American violence as “un-American” scapegoating over the cause of the virus.
13. A substantial number of Americans remain hesitant about getting vaccinated even as supplies grow, and the administration is directing federal funds to campaigns to convince skeptical Americans that the shots are safe.
14. But even as his advisers publicly hailed the passage of the stimulus plan, Biden made it clear that he also wanted to use his speech to reflect on how many lives had been upended, or lost, during one of the most difficult years in American history, and show the nation that he understood what that loss meant.
15. “Finding light in the darkness is a very American thing to do,” Biden said. “In fact it may be the most American thing we do, and that’s what we’ve done.”
“This historic legislation is about rebuilding the backbone of this country” Joe Biden