The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
BIDEN: 'AMERICA IS ON THE MOVE AGAIN'
President pushes $1.8 trillion plan to help families, schools. GOP response credits Trump for vaccines, economic rebound.
President Joe Biden declared Wednesday night in his first address to a joint session of Congress that the nation is “turning peril into possibility,” celebrating progress against the coronavirus and urging a $1.8 trillion investment in children, families and education that would fundamentally transform roles the government plays in American life.
Republican lawmakers are pushing back over the price tag of both the families plan and a previously unveiled $2.3 trillion infrastructure package, which would be financed by higher taxes on corporations and the highest earners, complicating the chances of passage in a deeply divided Washington.
Biden marked his first 100 days in office as the nation emerges from a confluence of crises, making his case before a pared-down gathering of mask-wearing legislators because of pandemic restrictions. The speech took place in a U.S. Capitol still surrounded by fencing after insurrectionists in January protesting his election stormed to the doors of the House chamber where he gave his address.
This year’s scene at the front of the House chamber 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, “Madame Vice President.”
The entire House setting was unlike that for any of Biden’s predecessors, with members of Congress spread out, a sole Supreme Court justice in attendance and
many Republicans citing “scheduling conflicts” to stay away. There was no need for a “designated survivor,” with so many Cabinet members not there.
Biden laid out a sweeping 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 that economic growth will best come from taxing the highest earners to help the middle class and the poor.
“I can report to the nation: America is on the move again,” Biden was to say, according to excerpts released by the White House ahead of the speech. “Turning peril into possibility. Crisis into opportunity. Setback into strength.”
For Biden, his 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.
In the Republican response to the president’s speech, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., credited the Trump administration and the GOP for coronavirus vaccines and the economic rebound, insisting that Biden is reaping the benefits.
“This administration inherited a tide that had already turned,” he said. “The coronavirus is on the run!”
Scott also criticized continued restrictions such as school closures.
“Locking vulnerable kids out of the classroom is locking adults out of their future. Our public schools should have reopened months ago. Other countries’ did. Private and religious schools did. Science has shown for months that schools are safe,” he said.
“But too often, powerful grownups set science aside. And kids like me were left behind,” said Scott, who is Black.
Scott blamed Democrats for the nation feeling “so divided and anxious” and added that the nation’s “best future won’t come from Washington schemes or socialist dreams.”
Seizing an opportunity created by the pandemic, Biden has embraced major action over incremental change. But he will be forced to thread a needle between Republicans who cry government overreach and some Democrats who fear he won’t go big enough.
The Democratic president’s strategy is to sidestep polarization and appeal directly to voters. His prime-time speech underscored a trio of central campaign promises: to manage the deadly pandemic, to turn down the tension in Washington in the aftermath of the insurrection and to restore faith in government as an effective force for good.
Biden also was addressing an issue rarely confronted by an American president, namely that in order to compete with autocracies like China, the nation needs “to prove that democracy still works” after former President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of election fraud and the ensuing attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“In our first 100 days together, we have acted to restore the people’s faith in our democracy to deliver,” he said in the excerpts, pointing to actions against the pandemic and resulting economic slide.
Senate Republican leader Mitch Mcconnell said Tuesday, “President Biden ran as a moderate, but I’m hard pressed to think of anything at all that he’s done so far that would indicate some degree of moderation.”
Yet the desire for swift action is born from political necessity. Biden understands that the time for passing his agenda could be perilously short given that presidents’ parties historically lose congressional seats in the midterm elections, less than two years away. The Democrats’ margins are already razor-thin.
He spoke against a backdrop of the weakening but still lethal pandemic, staggering unemployment and a roiling debate about police violence against Blacks. Biden was also using his address to touch on the broader national reckoning over race in America, and to call on Congress to act on 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.
New in his Wednesday speech was a “families” plan that could cement Biden’s legacy with $1.8 trillion worth of spending over 10 years.
A significant amount 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.