Biden proposes $1.9 trillion pandemic, economic crisis plan
WASHINGTON — Presidentelect Joe Biden proposed a $1.9 trillion plan to combat the nation’s economic and public health emergencies, as he began to raise the curtain on a new presidency built on faith in the power of the federal government to help solve problems.
In a speech to the nation Thursday night, Biden called for for quick congressional action on his sweeping package, which will include steps to speed production and distribution of vaccines, an additional $1,400 in direct payments to individuals, an increased minimum wage, expanded unemployment benefits, aid to state and local governments and an expansion of aid to families with children.
“We have to act and we have to act now,” Biden said. “The very health of our nation is at stake.”
Biden cast the plan as an immediate response to a continuing pandemic and an economic crisis that is worsening as already high unemployment rates have once again started to rise after months of declines from record levels in the spring.
Many of the proposals, however, also serve as down payments toward longer-run Democratic goals, including a oneyear expansion of aid to families with children, which Biden said would “cut child poverty in half” over the next year.
The effort to do both comes with a big price tag — more than twice the $908 billion in relief Congress approved last month. That will make it a tough sell in a narrowly divided Senate where Republicans have tremendous power to slow or block legislation even though Democrats will hold the majority.
But Biden argued that spending now would put the economy on a sounder foundation for renewed growth.
“I know what I just described does not come cheaply,” he said.
“But failure to do so will cost us dearly.”
A senior Biden official said the president-elect and his aides hoped that his speech would begin to build public support for the plan.
“The strategy is to make the case clearly to the American people about the immediacy of the need, and to work to try to build on the spirit of bipartisanship that helped to bring together action in December,” the official said, referring to the relief approved last month. “But that was just a down payment. And so we’re going to need to work to do more.”
Reflecting Biden’s view of the plan as just a first installment, officials referred to it as a “rescue” package designed to address the most urgent needs, to be followed next month by a “recovery” plan that will address his more ambitious goals beyond getting back to “normal.”
Biden said he would lay out that next stage, which is expected to include his infrastructure plan and measures to combat climate change, during a speech to a joint session of Congress next month.
The plan drew quick support from top Democrats.
“When President-elect Biden was elected, he told the American people that ‘Help is on the
way.’ With the COVID-rescue package the presidentelect announced today, he is moving swiftly to deliver that help,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York said in a statement in advance of Biden’s speech.
But the opening act of the incoming Biden administration will pose a tough test of his oft-repeated goal of building bridges to the Republican Party and bringing the spirit of bipartisanship back to Washington. He is proposing a big expenditure just as Republicans, after ignoring the run-up of deficits under President Donald Trump, have expressed concern about the growth of government spending and questioned the need for more relief so soon after last month’s action.
A key question is whether Biden will treat it as an opening bid from which he will retreat to build bipartisan support, or try to push it through the Senate with Democratic votes alone.
“Is he willing to meet Senate Republicans — at least some of them — where they are?” asked Rohit Kumar, a former deputy chief of staff to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky who is now co-leader of PwC’s National Tax Office. “That probably doesn’t include increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour.”
The Biden plan included some proposals, such as aid to state and local governments, that Republicans resolutely opposed in previous negotiations. It is a wish list that reflects his desire to act boldly, perhaps sensitive to complaints that the Obama administration’s 2009 economic stimulus plan was too cautious for the crisis inherited from George W. Bush.
“The risk of doing too little at this moment is much greater than the risk of doing too much,” said the senior Biden official, who briefed reporters under ground rules that did not allow names to be used.
Biden’s drive for bipartisan support, if successful, would be opposite the experience of his recent predecessors on major economic initiatives. No Democrats voted for Trump’s 2017 tax cut. President Barack Obama’s 2009 economic relief act passed with no Republican votes in the House and just three from Republicans in the Senate. Before him, President Bill Clinton in 1993 had to rely solely on Democrats to pass a deficit reduction bill that was a signature element of his presidency.
The centerpiece of the Biden plan is the effort to speed up vaccinations and expand coronavirus testing. In his speech, Biden said the Trump administration’s efforts had been “a dismal failure so far.” Deaths nationwide due to COVID-19 are nearing 400,000.
Biden plans to ask for $400 billion to speed the pace of vaccinations and hit his goal of inoculating 100 million people within the first 100 days.
His plan would expand coronavirus testing and create community vaccination centers around the country, as well as mobile units to serve people in remote communities and other hard-to-reach groups.