Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
‘The president we need right now’
Biden’s speech met with praise, derision from locals
WASHINGTON (AP) >> President Joe Biden declared that “America is rising anew” as he called for an expansion of federal programs to drive the economy past the coronavirus pandemic and broadly extend the social safety net on a scale not seen in decades.
Biden’s nationally televised address to Congress, his first, raised the stakes for his ability to sell his plans to voters of both parties, even if Republican lawmakers prove resistant. The Democratic president is following Wednesday night’s speech by pushing his plans in person, beginning in Georgia on Thursday and then on to Pennsylvania and Virginia in the days ahead.
In the address, Biden pointed optimistically to the nation’s emergence from the coronavirus scourge as a moment for America to prove that its democracy can still work and maintain primacy in the world.
Speaking in highly personal
terms while demanding massive structural changes, the president marked his first 100 days in office by proposing a $1.8 trillion investment in children, families and education to help rebuild an economy devastated by the virus and compete with rising global competitors.
His speech represented both an audacious vision and a considerable gamble. He is governing with the most slender of majorities in Congress, and even some in his own party have blanched at the price tag of his proposals.
At the same time, the speech highlighted Biden’s fundamental belief in the power of government as a force for good, even at a time when it is so often the object of scorn.
“I can report to the nation: America is on the move again,” he said. “Turning peril into possibility. Crisis into opportunity. Setback into strength.”
Chester County residents and public officials held a wide variety of viewpoints concerning Biden’s address.
Green Team member and West Chester resident Nathaniel Smith paid particular attention to the speech.
“I think Biden showed himself to be exactly the president we need right now,” Smith said. “It shouldn’t seem new, but the idea that all levels of government and both parties should work for ‘We the People’ is a big change in the White House.
“I liked his stress on health, infrastructure, people’s everyday needs, fairness, human rights, immigration, gun safety, and jobs.
“Biden said: ‘When I think climate change, I think ‘jobs.’ And as he said, it’s time for those renewable energy jobs all to be here in the U.S.”
U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-6th of Easttown also watched closely.
“President Joe Biden addressed the nation at a historic time as we continue to battle this pandemic,” she said. “Great progress has been made in our fight – all adult Americans are eligible for a vaccine, businesses and schools are opening safely and our economy is rebounding.
“These gains are in large parts thanks to both the provisions in the American Rescue Plan and you, the people of this country who have sacrificed so much for the greater good.”
Downingtown Planning and Development Consultant Barry Cassidy said he thought Biden laid out his agenda for America pretty well.
“I would have liked to have heard more about ‘equitable rail projects’ like the one that I am working on to restore rail service to Phoenixville, Royersford, Pottstown and Reading,” Cassidy said. “I believe investments in rail should be centered around local people’s affordable access to transit rather than creation of additional AMTRAK lines which tend to service the elites.”
Gordon Eck is chair of the Republican Committee of Chester County.
“Ronald Reagan famously said, ‘The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government and I’m here to help.’” Eck said. “Last night we heard of all the ‘help’ the Federal Government is going to provide.
“Mr. President, you have already done enough! You’ve created a humanitarian crisis on our southern border, put thousands of Americans out of work and jeopardized our national security by canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline, and now you are immorally saddling our children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars of debt they can never repay.
“If you really want to help, get out of the way and let American ingenuity thrive in a climate of freedom.”
Dick Bingham is chair of the Chester County Democratic Committee and enjoyed the speech.
“What a great feeling watching President Biden last night!” he said. “History was made with his very first words: ‘Madam Speaker, Madam Vice President.’
“And what a great start he is having in his first 100 days: Fix the economy, create jobs, improve health care and education. President Biden and his team are clearly on track to make ‘Build Back Better’ a reality.”
State Sen. Carolyn Comitta, D-19th of West Chester, said: “As we continue our recovery and look forward to the promise of the postpandemic era, President Biden is charting a path to address climate change, strengthen our infrastructure, uplift workers and families, invest in our economic success, and ensure safety, equality, and justice for all. The speech was hopeful, its tone optimistic, and its content ambitious. That is exactly what these challenging times call for. I look forward to working in the spirit of bipartisanship and across all levels of government to ensure a better, brighter future for all Chester Countians, Pennsylvanians and Americans.”
Chester County Democratic Committee Zone Leader for West Chester Jim Salvas is a Biden fan.
“I always liked Joe Biden, but he keeps surprising me,” Salvas said. “He’s just such a likeable guy.
“This guy knows how to govern and we haven’t seen this in a while.”
State Sen. John Kane, D9th of Birmingham, also watched the president.
“I want to commend President Biden on his speech last night, and especially on his commitment to building our economy from the bottom up and from the middle out,” Kane said. “Working families bore the brunt of this pandemic – from our essential workers who put their own health at risk over and over again to keep our country functioning, to those who lost their jobs in the biggest economic downturn in decades.
“It’s our responsibility to make sure that our working people are the center of our recovery. I’m proud of the work President Biden has done in his first 100 days and look forward to being a partner with this administration to fight for working families.”
While the ceremonial setting of the Capitol was the same as usual, the visual images were unlike any previous presidential address. Members of Congress wore masks and were seated apart because of pandemic restrictions. Outside the grounds were still surrounded by fencing after insurrectionists in January protesting Biden’s election stormed to the doors of the House chamber where he gave his address.
“America is ready for takeoff. We are working again. Dreaming again. Discovering again. Leading the world again. We have shown each other and the world: There is no quit in America,” Biden said.
This year’s scene at the front of the House chamber also had a historic look: For the first time, a female vice president, Kamala Harris, was seated behind the chief executive. And she was next to another woman, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The first ovation came as Biden greeted “Madam Vice President.” He added, “No president has ever said those words from this podium, and it’s about time.”
The chamber was so sparsely populated that individual claps could be heard echoing off the walls.
Yet Biden said, “I have never been more confident or more optimistic about America. We have stared into an abyss of insurrection and autocracy — of pandemic and pain — and ‘We the People’ did not flinch.”
At times, the president plainly made his case for democracy itself.
Biden demanded that the government take care of its own as a powerful symbol to the world of an America willing to forcefully follow its ideals and people. He confronted an issue rarely faced by an American president, namely that in order to compete with autocracies like China, the nation needs “to prove that democracy still works” after his predecessor’s baseless claims of election fraud and the ensuing attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“Can our democracy overcome the lies, anger, hate and fears that have pulled us apart?” he asked. “America’s adversaries – the autocrats of the world – are betting it can’t. They believe we are too full of anger and division and rage. They look at the images of the mob that assaulted this Capitol as proof that the sun is setting on American democracy. They are wrong. And we have to prove them wrong.”
Biden repeatedly hammered home that his plans would put Americans back to work, restoring the millions of jobs lost to the virus. He laid out an extensive proposal for universal preschool, two years of free community college, $225 billion for child care and monthly payments of at least $250 to parents. His ideas target frailties that were uncovered by the pandemic, and he argues that economic growth will best come from taxing the rich to help the middle class and the poor.
Biden’s speech also provided an update on combating the COVID-19 crisis he was elected to tame, showcasing hundreds of millions of vaccinations and relief checks delivered to help offset the devastation wrought by a virus that has killed more than 573,000 people in the United States. He also championed his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan, a staggering figure to be financed by higher taxes on corporations.
His appeals were often emotive and personal, talking about Americans needing food and rental assistance.
He also spoke to members of Congress as a peer as much as a president, singling out Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republicans’ leader, to praise him and speaking as one at a professional homecoming.
The GOP members in the chamber largely stayed silent, even refusing to clap for seemingly universal goals like reducing childhood poverty. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina said, in the Republicans’ designated response, that Biden was more rhetoric than action.
“Our president seems like a good man,” Scott said. “But our nation is starving for more than empty platitudes.”
The president spoke against a backdrop of the weakening but still lethal pandemic, staggering unemployment and a roiling debate about police violence against Blacks.
He also used his address to touch on the broader national reckoning over race in America, urging legislation be passed by the anniversary of George Floyd’s death next month, and to call on Congress to act on the thorny issues of prescription drug pricing, gun control and modernizing the nation’s immigration system.
In his first three months in office, Biden has signed a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill — passed without a single GOP vote — and has shepherded direct payments of $1,400 per person to more than 160 million households. Hundreds of billions of dollars in aid will soon arrive for state and local governments, enough money that overall U.S. growth this year could eclipse 6% — a level not seen since 1984. Administration officials are betting that it will be enough to bring back all 8.4 million jobs lost to the pandemic by next year.
A significant amount proposed just Wednesday would ensure that eligible families receive at least $250 monthly per child through 2025, extending the enhanced tax credit that was part of Biden’s COVID-19 aid. There would be more than $400 billion for subsidized child care and free preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds.
Another combined $425 billion would go to permanently reduce health insurance premiums for people who receive coverage through the Affordable Care Act, as well a national paid family and medical leave program. Further spending would be directed toward Pell Grants, historically Black and tribal institutions and to allow people to attend community college tuition-free for two years.
Funding all of this would be a series of tax increases on the wealthy that would raise about $1.5 trillion over a decade. Republican lawmakers in Congress so far have balked at the price tags of Biden’s plans, complicating the chances of passage in a deeply divided Washington.