Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Looks like nation, Biden says as Cabinet meets
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s first Cabinet meeting looked and felt different from those of his predecessor.
Biden’s full Cabinet met Thursday in the spacious White House East Room, not the comparatively cramped West Wing room that bears the group’s name, to allow for social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic.
Many tables were pushed together to create a gigantic square. Department secretaries and other participants wore masks. And the portion of the meeting opened to press
coverage lacked the hail-tothe chief tributes that came to define Donald Trump’s Cabinet meetings.
Biden immediately pointed out the diversity of his Cabinet, which includes the first Black defense secretary in Lloyd Austin, the first openly gay Cabinet member in Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the first American Indian secretary in Deb Halaand at the Interior Department and the first female treasury secretary in Janet Yellen, among others.
Vice President Kamala Harris is the first woman, Black person and Indian American elected to her office.
Biden declared the group “looks like America” and added, “That’s what we promised we were going to do, and we’ve done it.”
Trump’s Cabinet was largely white and male.
Also Thursday, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain suggested the administration is willing to advance its $2 trillion jobs and infrastructure plan with no Republican support, setting the stage for another bruising spending battle in Washington.
While stressing that the White House hopes to secure GOP support, Klain signaled that the administration is willing to use Democrats’ narrow majorities in the House and Senate to approve legislation aimed at rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure and confronting climate change. Klain also repeatedly said the White House was optimistic it could garner GOP support for the plan and would try to do so.
Thursday’s Cabinet meeting took place a week after the Senate confirmed the final Cabinet member and a day after Biden released the infrastructure plan, which was a major item on the agenda.
The White House allowed reporters to witness just the opening three minutes, where Biden announced that he had asked five Cabinet secretaries “to take special responsibility to explain the plan to the American public.” He directed Buttigieg, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Housing and Urban Development’s Marcia Fudge, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to be especially visible to the public and lead outreach on Capitol Hill.
Biden also directed the Cabinet to examine agency spending to ensure it follows his “Buy American” commitment.
EYE ON INFRASTRUCTURE
With the sales blitz for the infrastructure plan just beginning, the focus of the Cabinet meeting was on how the package can be relevant across government, as well as continuing to emphasize the benefits Biden expects from the $1.9 trillion covid-19 relief bill he signed into law last month, said White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates.
Cabinet meetings in the modern era are less about setting administration policy than ensuring that all the government agencies are on the same page, say former officials. The sessions also
offer presidents an opportunity to make their priorities and values clear. Deeper debates are generally reserved for smaller, subject-specific gatherings of Cabinet officials and senior advisers, such as the National Security Council and the Domestic Policy Council.
“As the federal government has become increasingly complex over the years, the role of the Cabinet has evolved as well,” said Chris Lu, President Barack Obama’s first-term Cabinet secretary. “In addition to serious policy discussions, Cabinet meetings are an opportunity for the president to lay out broad directions for how his team should operate.”
“The meetings can help align priorities, build morale and allow Cabinet members to develop relationships with colleagues who they don’t normally see,” Lu said.
All 16 permanent members of the Cabinet — the vice president and heads of the executive departments, including Yellen, Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken — attended in person Thursday. So did other Cabinet-rank officials, including Klain and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines.
Shalanda Young, acting budget chief, participated after Neera Tanden, Biden’s first choice for that job, withdrew her nomination amid Senate opposition. Biden is also awaiting confirmation of Eric Lander to lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy, a post the president has elevated to Cabinet rank.
In all, 25 people were there, the White House said.
In normal times, scheduling a Cabinet meeting would require weeks of planning to block off time in travel schedules. These days, most remain in Washington because of the pandemic.
CALL FOR UNITY
Republicans have already balked at Biden’s sprawling infrastructure initiative since its introduction Wednesday, leveling particularly fierce criticism at tax increases on businesses that would
reverse much of their 2017 tax law.
“Let’s work together and see if there’s a way for us to deliver this. In the end, let me be clear, the president was elected to do a job. And part of that job is to get this country ready to win the future. That’s what he’s going to do,” Klain told Politico. “We intend to deliver.”
Lawmakers of both parties have traditionally supported infrastructure investments, but Republicans have never backed the extent of clean-energy policies or tax increases that Biden’s plan entails.
If Republicans unify in opposing the measure, Democrats could pass it through the Senate with their narrow majority by using a parliamentary procedure called budget reconciliation that allows them to avoid the 60-vote threshold necessary to end a filibuster. The 100-seat Senate is split 5050 between lawmakers who caucus with Democrats and Republicans, though Harris can cast a tie-breaking vote.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday that the administration would like the measure to be passed “by the summer.”
The comments from Biden’s chief of staff mark the beginning of the difficult legislative wrangling expected to ensue for months over the White House’s major domestic policy initiative.
The American Jobs Plan would devote more than $600 billion to the United States’ physical infrastructure, such as roads, bridges and highways; about $400 billion in clean-energy credits; more than $200 billion to housing; and hundreds of billions to fixing the nation’s electric grid, high-speed broadband and lead water pipes, among other measures.
Congressional Republicans have panned the White House plan, alleging it is full of wasteful spending and would damage American businesses. Biden’s proposal would raise at least $2 trillion in taxes by increasing the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent and bringing the global minimum tax to 21 percent, among other increases.
REPUBLICANS RESPOND
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Thursday blasted the proposed tax increases as a “big mistake.” While GOP lawmakers
support infrastructure investments, McConnell said, Congress could not afford to “whack the economy with major tax increases or run up the national debt even more.”
“I think that package they’re putting together now, as much as we would like to address infrastructure, is not going to get support from our side,” he said.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., the senior Republican on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, blasted the proposal as a “clear attempt to transform the economy by advancing progressive priorities in an unprecedented way.”
“The proposal would aggressively drive down the use of traditional energy resources and eliminate good-paying jobs in West Virginia and across the country,” she added in a statement. “Perhaps worst of all, it would burden the American economy with tax increases as our country attempts to recover from economic hardship.”
During the debate over the $1.9 trillion stimulus plan, Biden and other White House officials rankled congressional Republicans by saying the plan was bipartisan because it enjoyed support among GOP voters. No Republican in either the House or Senate supported the measure. Klain suggested reprising a similar argument over the infrastructure plan.
“We know it has bipartisan support in the country, so we’ll try our best to get bipartisan support in Washington,” Klain said. “You can go any given week to any Rotary Club in America and find elected leaders at every level of government” who support rebuilding the nation’s lead pipes and other infrastructure.
In Pittsburgh on Wednesday, Biden said he would invite Republicans to the Oval Office to discuss the measure and be open to their ideas as part of a “good-faith negotiation.” “There’s no reason why it can’t be bipartisan again,” Biden said, citing GOP support for other infrastructure measures. “But we have to get it done.”