Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Biden pushes for $1.9T bill, signs ‘Buy American’ order
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden signed an executive order Monday to boost government buying from U.S. manufacturers, as talks with Congress over a $1.9 trillion stimulus package that he has called essential to the nation’s recovery showed few signs of progress.
The executive order is among a flurry of moves by Biden during his first full week to publicly show he’s taking swift action to heal an ailing economy.
Biden reiterated Monday that he believes the country is in a precarious spot and relief is urgently needed, even as he dismissed the possibility of embracing a scaled-down bill to secure passage faster. Among the features of the stimulus plan are a national vaccination program, aid to reopen schools, direct payments of $1,400 to individuals and financial relief for state and local governments.
“Time is of the essence,” Biden said. “I am reluctant to cherry-pick and take out one or two items here.”
Monday’s order will likely take 45 days or longer to make its way through the federal bureaucracy, during which time wrangling with Congress could produce a new aid package. That would be a follow-up to the $4 trillion previously approved to tackle the economic and medical fallout from the coronavirus.
Biden’s team held a call Sunday to outline the stimulus plan with at least a dozen senators, while the president has also privately talked with lawmakers.
An administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Sunday’s call was constructive and gave Biden’s team a chance to explain details of the proposal to lawmakers.
“There’s an urgency to moving it forward, and he certainly believes there has to be progress in the next couple of weeks,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday.
She warned that action needed to be taken before the U.S. reaches an “unemployment cliff ” in March, when long-term unemployment benefits expire for millions of Americans.
But Republicans were not joining in the push for immediate action.
One key Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, said after Sunday’s call that “it seems premature to be considering a package of this size and scope.”
Collins described the additional funding for vaccinations as useful while cautioning that any economic aid should be more targeted.
Biden suggested the nation could soon be vaccinating 1.5 million Americans on average per day.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Monday that “any further action should be smart and targeted, not just an imprecise deluge of borrowed money that would direct huge sums toward those who don’t need it.”
Biden sought to downplay the rhetoric from GOP lawmakers, saying, “I have been doing legislative negotiations for a large part of my life. I know how the system works.”
“This is just the process beginning,” he added.