Biden administration

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Restorationists urge Jill Biden to erase Melania Trump’s Rose Garden makeover

      by

      Efforts to erase the Trump family legacy have reached the White House potting sheds and nurseries with Jill Biden being urged to restore the mansion’s garden to a state that predates ex-First Lady Melania Trump’s 2019 makeover.An online petition calling on the first lady to return the Rose Garden to its “former glory” has been signed by more than 54,000 people. The petition says Biden’s predecessor “had the cherry trees, a gift from Japan, removed as well as the rest of the foliage and replaced with a boring tribute to herself”.Restorationists urge that the garden be returned to a state that was created in the early 1960s by Jacqueline Kennedy with the help of famed designer Bunny Mellon.“Jackie’s legacy was ripped away from Americans who remembered all that the Kennedys meant to us,” the petition reads, and notes that her husband, the president, had said that “the White House had no garden equal in quality or attractiveness to the gardens that he had seen and in which he had been entertained in Europe.”In July 2020, as her husband fought for re-election and the coronavirus pandemic raged, Trump announced that her renovation project, which included electrical upgrades for television appearances, a new walkway and new flowers and shrubs, would be an “act of expressing hope and optimism for the future”.The changes to the garden were the first since Michelle Obama initiated a project in 2009 to dig up an 1,100 square foot plot on the South Lawn adjacent to the tennis courts for a vegetable garden.The plan included replacing crab apple trees, introducing a new assortment of white “JFK” and pale pink “peace” roses, and a new drainage system. “In a way, the metaphor of openness and improved access became our overall plan concept,” wrote Perry Guillot, the landscape architect overseeing the project.But the renovation met with criticism focused on Trump’s decision to go ahead with her project during the Covid-19 pandemic. There is no indication, as yet, that Jill Biden plans to act on the petition’s recommendations.On Thursday, her husband was spotted by the White House press corps picking a dandelion for his wife from the White House lawn before they boarded a helicopter.A day later, on Friday, the first lady commemorated Arbor Day by planting a linden tree on the north lawn of the White House. Her press office said it was to replace one removed last month that was deemed a risk and had not been planted by a historical figure.“Who doesn’t plant trees in high heels?” she said. More

    • 213 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘You changed America’: Biden marks first 100 days in Georgia – a state key to his victory

      by

      On his 100th day as US president, Joe Biden spontaneously lowered his black face mask, leaned towards the microphone and shouted: “Go Georgia, we need you!”It was a fitting moment in a state that has more claim than most to be the ground zero of a potentially transformative presidency.Biden had just marked the 100-day milestone with a drive-in rally in Duluth, about 30 miles north of Atlanta, to promote his $4tn plans to rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure and vastly expand the government’s social safety net.Troubled by a cough, and briefly interrupted by protesters demanding an end to private prisons, the president gave an abridged version of his speech to a joint session of Congress the previous evening.But he paid particular attention – and gratitude – to an audience that has played an outsized role in the making of his administration.Towards the end of his campaign, he visited Warm Springs, the Georgia town that helped Franklin Roosevelt cope with polio. Come election day, Biden became, by a narrow margin, the first Democrat to win Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992.Then on 5 January, unexpected runoff wins by Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in Georgia gave Democrats the balance of power in the Senate. If Republicans had retained control, Biden’s first hundred days would have looked very different.Jonathan Alter, the author of The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, said on Thursday: “Without the Georgia runoffs, you would not have that transformational presidency. It would be a completely different story. If 6 January is an important date in American history, so is 5 January because of those Georgia runoffs and none of what’s happening would be possible without 5 January.”Ossoff and Warnock joined Biden and the first lady, Jill Biden, on stage at Thursday night’s rally. The four joined hands and held them aloft as the song (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher boomed from loudspeakers.Georgia has become a bellwether in a nationwide battle over voting rights. More than a hundred corporations, as well as civil rights organisers and sports leagues, spoke out against restrictions passed by Georgia’s Republican state legislature. Biden condemned the curbs as “just wrong” and called for Congress to pass nationwide protections.Last month Atlanta was the scene of a mass shooting in which eight people died, including six women of Asian descent, helping prompt Biden to take executive actions for gun safety and denounce hate crimes.Long a Republican stronghold, Georgia is now a diversifying swing state that will feature closely watched races for Senate and governor next year. It will almost certainly be one of the most competitive states during the 2024 presidential campaign.With a US national flag behind him, Biden told supporters gathered around vehicles: “Because of you, we passed one of the most consequential rescue bills in American history … You changed America. You began to change America and you’re helping us prove America can still deliver for the people.”That meant, he said, a hundred days that included the creation of 1.3m jobs, more than other president in history over the same period. It meant food and rental assistance, loans for small businesses and an expansion of healthcare. And, he said, the US is on course to cut child poverty in half this year.The president went on to tout the biggest jobs plan since the second world war, building infrastructure, replacing lead pipes to ensure clean drinking water and expanding broadband internet to rural areas.Tackling the climate crisis, Biden added, will “create millions of good paying jobs”, going on to repeat a line from his address to Congress: “There is simply no reason why the blades for wind turbines can’t be built in Pittsburgh instead of Beijing.”Biden also pushed his new $1.8tn families plan that includes free universal preschool, free community college and support for childcare. “I was a single dad for five years,” he said, recalling the death of his first wife in a car crash and how he had to depend on family members because he could not afford outside help.Republicans have questioned how Biden intends to pay for his bold plans. He insisted: “It’s real simple. It’s about time the very wealthy and corporations started paying their fair share … No one making under $400,000 a year is going to pay a single additional penny in tax.”In an emotional finale, Biden told the crowd: “Folks, it’s only been a hundred days but I have to tell you, I’ve never been more optimistic about the future in America.” America’s on the move again. We’re choosing hope over fear, truth over lies, light over darkness.Biden, who has further campaign-style stops planned in Pennsylvania and Virginia in coming days, is enjoying popular support in opinion polls. A survey by Navigator Research found positive approval among 86% of Democrats, 61% of independents and even 59% of Republicans. Two-thirds of the public believe Biden’s pandemic-related policies have had a positive impact.Navigator also conducted three online focus groups with low-income Republicans and Democrats across the ideological spectrum in Florida, Nevada and Texas. The comments included a man from Florida saying, “I don’t feel like I have to doom scroll through my feed to see what the next thing is,” and a Nevada man commenting, “Almost immediately as soon he took office, everything just kind of calmed down and everyone’s like, ‘OK, we have a normal person there’.”But Republicans in Congress have condemned Biden’s spending spree, suggesting that he is exploiting the pandemic to smuggle in liberal imperatives and that his promise of bipartisanship rings hollow.Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, told Fox News: “We’re friendly. We’ve done deals together in the past. However, the reason we’re not talking now is because he’s not trying to do anything remotely close to moderate.“Think of it as the Biden bait-and-switch. He ran as a moderate, but everything he’s recommended so far has been hard left. Bernie Sanders is really happy. He may have lost a nomination, but he won the argument over what today’s Democratic party is – more taxes, more spending, more borrowing.”Earlier on Thursday, the Bidens visited former president Jimmy Carter, 96, and his 93-year-old wife, Rosalynn, at their home in Plains, Georgia. It was at least the third occasion this month on which Biden has spoken with one of his predecessors, following conversations with George W Bush and Barack Obama about withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.Biden was the first senator to endorse Carter for president in 1976. Carter’s defeat to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980 ushered in an era in which calls for smaller government and lower taxes for big business and the wealthy were embraced as key to economic growth.Alter, also the author of the Carter biography His Very Best, said: “Biden wants to have a foreign policy that’s based on human rights and that goes back to Jimmy Carter.“He doesn’t want to have an Iranian hostage crisis but in terms of the aspirations for American leadership in the world, and standing up for American values in the world, that really does date from Jimmy Carter, who is no longer in bad odour in the United States, particularly in the Democratic party where in the past Democratic nominees have not really been thrilled to be associated with Carter because he lost in a landslide.“But that was more than 40 years ago. The sting of Reagan’s landslide has worn off and part of what Reagan is selling is a partial return to the pre-Reagan political universe.” More

    • 150 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Amazon’s sales up 44% as US economy soars 6.4% in first quarter

      by

      Amazon’s sales increased 44% to $108.5bn in the first three months of the year as the company’s pandemic boom continued into 2021.The sales figures from the online shopping and web services giant came after the release of slew of positive economic reports that suggest the US is shaking off the worst of the pandemic recession.Amazon made a profit of $8.1bn for the quarter – $2.7bn a month – beating analysts’ forecasts after a series of better than expected results from tech companies and others.While Amazon profited throughout the coronavirus downturn, there are now signs that the economic recovery is spreading.The news came after the commerce department said the US economy took off in the first quarter, soaring 6.4% on an annual basis as rising vaccinations, a massive round of government stimulus and a steady recovery in the jobs market helped reverse some of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.The annualized rate suggests the US economy is firmly on the road to recovery. In normal times US gross domestic product (GDP) – the broadest measure of the economy – grows at about 2-2.5% a year, but the pandemic triggered wild swings as the country went into lockdown and businesses shuttered.The news comes amid a flood of good news for the US economy. The corporate earnings season has seen many sectors of the economy from banking to automotive bouncing back from the pandemic. Apple too reported bumper results on Tuesday, the latest tech company to record booming sales during the pandemic. New York City, the center of the US pandemic last year, will fully reopen on 1 July, while 43% of the population has received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine and more than a quarter of the US is now fully vaccinated.US stock markets set record highs again after the GDP report and copper prices, seen as key indicator of economic demand, rose to $10,000 a tonne for the first time since 2011.The outpouring of good news is all the more remarkable given the scale of economic woe the pandemic heaped on the US economy.A year ago US unemployment hit a post-second world war high of 14.8%, it has since fallen to 6%. The economy suffered its worst quarterly contraction in history last year, shrinking 32.9% on an annualized basis. It grew at 4.3% in the last three months of 2020 after recording a remarkable annual growth rate of 33.4% in the previous three months.“The increase in first-quarter GDP reflected the continued economic recovery, reopening of establishments, and continued government response related to the Covid-19 pandemic,” the commerce department said.Problems remain, the number of people filing for unemployment benefits each week is still high. On Thursday the labor department said 553,000 people filed for benefits last week. The number has been falling sharply but remains close to twice as high as pre-pandemic levels and the jobs market is still down 8.4m jobs.Racial disparities also remain. Black and Latino Americans suffered the hardest as the pandemic closed businesses across the US and their unemployment rates remain elevated in comparison with white Americans. Women, too, have been pushed out of the workforce by the shutdowns, triggering what some economists have dubbed a “shecession”. Lack of childcare and other issues have meant that 1.8 million women have left the workforce entirely.But the fast rollout of vaccines, the reopening of businesses and the Biden administration’s $1.9tn stimulus bill have boosted consumer confidence and fueled an impressive recovery.The US government sent cheques to 90 million Americans in March and consumer confidence is approaching pre-pandemic levels having risen for four months in a row. Consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of US economic activity.Consumption growth surged 10.7% over the quarter and the US savings rate grew to 21.0% from 13.0%. Capital Economics expects those savers to start spending now that Covid-19 restrictions are lifting.“With the elevated saving rate, households are still flush with cash and, now that restrictions are being eased as the vaccination program proves a success, that will allow them to boost spending on the worst-affected services, without needing to pull back too much on goods spending,” the economic forecasting group wrote in a note to investors. More

    • 100 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Joe Biden’s speech to Congress: five key takeaways

      by

      The coronavirus pandemic cast a strange pall on the yearly political traditionAs Biden took the podium, he brushed past a sparse, masked crowd. He fist-bumped and elbow-tapped lawmakers and members of his cabinet – greeting a crowd that was physically distanced, and ideologically divided.Because fewer people were in attendance, due to coronavirus safety protocols, applause and cheers were muted – as seemed appropriate for a somber moment in history. Although Biden’s speech signaled hope – there was no denying that the country was still grappling with enormous loss and grief.After a long, dark year, the vaccine offered a light, Biden said. “Grandparents hugging their children and grandchildren instead of pressing their hands against a window to say goodbye,” he said.But, he added: “There’s still more work to do to beat this virus. We can’t let our guard down now.”It was a historic evening for women in governmentAs soon as he took to the podium, Biden acknowledged Kamala Harris, stood behind him, as “Madam vice-president,” and then reflected: “No president has ever said these words from behind this podium. And it’s about time.”For the first time in US history, two women were seated behind the president addressing a joint session of Congress. Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker and the third person in the chain of command, after Biden and Harris, also flanked Biden.In 2007, Pelosi was the first woman to sit behind a president during a joint address to Congress after she became the first woman to hold the position of House speaker. Harris is the first woman, and Black and South Asian American person to be elected vice-president. Asked about the significance of the occasion, Harris told reporters it was just “normal”.‘Jobs, jobs, jobs’Biden’s populist, direct appeal to working-class Americans could be summed up by one four-letter word: jobs. At each step, Biden is explaining that his proposals – to improve water infrastructure, to increase internet access, to build highways, to increase childcare options for working families – will boost jobs.He used the word 43 times throughout his speech.“When I think about climate change, I think jobs,” he said. “There’s no reason the blades for wind turbines can’t be built in Pittsburgh instead of Beijing.”Biden ushered in a new era of big government, and big government spending“Our government still works – and can deliver for the people,” Biden said.The president introduced his sweeping $1.8tn plan, which would invest billions in a national childcare program, universal preschool, tuition-free community college, health insurance subsidies and tax cuts for low- and middle-income workers.The vision would be funded by rolling back Trump-era tax cuts, raising the capital gains rate for millionaires and billionaires, and closing tax loopholes for the wealthy.“Trickle-down economics has never worked. It’s time to grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out,” Biden said. “We’re going reform corporate taxes so they pay their fair share – and help pay for the public investments their businesses will benefit from.”The messaging was a clear example of how much Biden has embraced and adopted progressive ideas and policies – even if many of the administration’s proposals are more modest, or watered-down versions of what leading progressive lawmakers have championed.The president pitched reforms that have bipartisan support – among voters, if not lawmakersBiden proposed major reforms to gun control and policing, and made a major pitch to protect voting rights. Republican lawmakers have fought the administration and their Democratic colleagues on all three issues. But polls indicate that though the country remains deeply divided on many issues, there’s actually broad, bipartisan support among voters for the president’s proposals.About two-thirds of Americans support tougher gun laws, a USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll found after the mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder this year. “The country supports reform, and the Congress should act,” Biden said.A March Morning Consult poll found that about 7 out of 10 voters, including majorities of Republicans, support the House’s sweeping elections reform measure. And while Republicans have many reservations about the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, the reform bill introduced by Democrats in Congress, polls indicate they largely support many provisions.Republicans, who have routinely denigrated and voted against Biden’s proposals, including his widely popular coronavirus relief plan and proposed infrastructure plan, have found themselves in an odd position of having to convince voters that they don’t actually want what they want. More

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      GOP’s Tim Scott delivers a rebuttal to Biden’s speech with Trumpian talking points

      by

      It is Donald Trump, not Democrats, who deserves credit for wresting the coronavirus pandemic under control, Tim Scott argued on Wednesday night as the Republican senator gave his party’s official response to Joe Biden’s first address to Congress.Scott, a South Carolinian seen as a rising star in the Republican party, was handpicked by GOP leaders to deliver a rebuttal to Biden’s optimistic message, and duly did so, opening with a solidly Republican criticism of “socialist dreams” before taking aim at the president over some public schools having failed to reopen – a decision which is taken at state-level, frequently by local districts, rather than by the federal government.As the only Black Republican in the US Senate, Scott had been expected to address the issue of racial inequality and the repeated police shootings of Black men, but those hoping for strident criticism of the racial crisis in the US were disappointed, with Scott instead saying, “Hear me clearly, America is not a racist country.”Scott, a conservative, Christian southerner, has walked the fine line between the establishment and Donald Trump wings of the Republican party with more aplomb than most. His status as a potential GOP star is one of the few things that Trump and Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, still agree on, and Scott won a coveted endorsement for his 2022 re-election bid from Trump in March.The extent to which Trump still looms over the Republican party was clear in Scott’s speech, with the senator praising the Trump administration and on occasion using talking points that could have been lifted straight from a Trump stump speech.“This administration inherited a tide that had already turned. The coronavirus is on the run,” Scott said, seemingly ignoring the fact that in December, Trump’s last full month in office, the US set a record for the highest daily number of new Covid cases, deaths and hospitalizations.“Thanks to Operation Warp Speed and the Trump administration, our country is flooded with safe and effective vaccines. Thanks to our bipartisan work last year, job openings are rebounding,” Scott said.He then harked back to before the Covid pandemic, which so far has killed more than 573,000 Americans. Trump has been widely blamed for allowing the virus to spiral out of control, and failing to take action once it did.“Just before Covid, we had the most inclusive economy in my lifetime. The lowest unemployment ever recorded for African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans. And a 70 year low, nearly, for women,” Scott said.Trump, ensconced in his holiday resort in south Florida, will have been pleased – these are claims he repeatedly made during his presidency, even if they are not totally supported by evidence.In 2019, the Washington Post’s factchecker called Trump’s claim that the black unemployment rate was the lowest in history “skewed and outdated”, and gave it three Pinnochios. Both Trump – and Scott – failed to note that the unemployment rate among Black and Hispanic people began to decline, steeply, under the Obama administration.Scott is leading the Republican party’s efforts to craft legislation with Democrats on police reform in response to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis last year, but in his speech, he accused Democrats of voting against a police reform bill he introduced in 2020. At the time, Democrats said the bill did not go far enough to tackle police violence.Scott has also previously joined Democrats Cory Booker and Kamala Harris to work on a bipartisan bill that would make lynching a federal crime, and led the way in creating Opportunity Zones – aimed growth and jobs in low income communities – in Trump’s 2017 tax reform package.Once hesitant to focus on race in his political career, Scott has increasingly talked about his experience as an African American. On Wednesday, Scott said he had “experienced the pain of discrimination”.“I know what it feels like to be pulled over for no reason. To be followed around a store while I’m shopping,” Scott said, but then pivoted to criticism of Democrats.“I’ve also experienced a different kind of intolerance,” Scott said. “I get called Uncle Tom and the n-word by progressives and liberals.”Scott then addressed a familiar Republican talking point, and a favorite of Trump: that schools and colleges are now exhibiting bias against white children.“A hundred years ago kids in classrooms were being taught the color of their skin was their most important characteristic, that if they looked a certain way they were inferior,” Scott said.“Today students are being taught that the color of their skin defines them again and if they look a certain way they are an oppressor.”In July 2020, Trump was fiercely criticized after he offered a dystopian vision of America, along the same lines as Scott’s classroom remarks if more emotional in tone.“Against every law of society and nature, our children are taught in school to hate their own country and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but that they were villains,” the then-president said, adding that there was a campaign to “indoctrinate our children”.Scott, who accused Democrats of a “Washington powergrab” over their opposition to a Georgia law that would make it more difficult for people to vote, later claimed that Biden would increase taxes, despite the president having said minutes earlier he would not raise taxes on those making less than $400,000 a year.Having warned darkly of a tax-heavy Democratic future, pitched the Republican message, and paid his dues to Trump, Scott ended his speech with a hopeful, and vague, vision for how the US might succeed – and with a shout out to law enforcement.“Our best future will not come from Washington schemes and socialist dreams,” he said.“It will come from you, the American people. Black, Hispanic, white and Asian. Republican and Democrat. Brave police officers and black neighborhoods.“We are not adversaries. We are family, and we are all in this together, and we get to live in the greatest country on earth.” More

    • 225 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Joe Biden pitches ambitious plan to reshape America in first major address to Congress – as it happened

      by

      Key events

      Show

      12.30am EDT
      00:30

      Key takeaways from tonight

      12.10am EDT
      00:10

      Progressive Democrats praise Biden on Covid but call for bolder action

      9.59pm EDT
      21:59

      Biden addresses a divided – and distanced – joint session

      9.39pm EDT
      21:39

      Biden introduces his families plan

      9.17pm EDT
      21:17

      Biden: ‘Go and get vaccinated’

      9.07pm EDT
      21:07

      Joe Biden has arrived

      8.52pm EDT
      20:52

      Why this address is not a “state of the union”

      Live feed

      Show

      12.30am EDT
      00:30

      Key takeaways from tonight

      1) The coronavirus pandemic cast a strange pall on the yearly political tradition.
      As Biden took the podium, he brushed past a sparse, masked crowd. He fist-bumped and elbow-tapped lawmakers and members of his cabinet – greeting a crowd that was physically distanced, and ideologically divided.
      Because fewer people were in attendance, due to coronavirus safety protocols, applause and cheers were muted – as seemed appropriate for a somber moment in history. Although Biden’s speech signaled hope – there was no denying that the country was still grappling with enormous loss and grief.
      After a long dark year, the vaccine offered a light, Biden said. “Grandparents hugging their children and grandchildren instead of pressing their hands against a window to say goodbye,” he said.
      But, he added: “There’s still more work to do to beat this virus. We can’t let our guard down now.”
      2) It was a historic evening for women in government.
      As soon as he took to the podium, Biden acknowledged Kamala Harris, stood behind him, as “Madam vice president,” and then reflected: “No president has ever said these words from behind this podium. And it’s about time.”
      For the first time in US history, two women were seated behind the president addressing a joint session of congress. Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker and the third person in the chain of command, after Biden and Harris, also flanked Biden.
      In 2007, Pelosi was the first woman to sit behind a president during a joint address to congress – after she became the first woman to hold the position of House Speaker. Harris is the first woman, and Black and South Asian American person to be elected vice president. Asked about the significance of the occasion, Harris told reporters it was just “normal”.
      3) “Jobs, jobs, jobs”
      Biden’s populist, direct appeal to working-class Americans could be summed up by one four-letter word: jobs. At each step, Biden is explaining that his proposals – to improve water infrastructure, to increase internet access, to build highways, to increase childcare options for working families – will boost jobs.
      He used the word 43 times throughout his speech.
      “When I think about climate change, I think jobs,” he said. “There’s no reason the blades for wind turbines can’t be built in Pittsburgh instead of Beijing.”
      4) Biden ushered in a new era of big government, and big government spending
      “Our government still works – and can deliver for the people,” Biden said.
      The president introduced his sweeping $1.8tn plan, which would invest billions in a national childcare program, universal preschool, tuition-free community college, health insurance subsidies and tax cuts for low- and middle-income workers.
      The vision would be funded by rolling back Trump-era tax cuts, raising the capital gains rate for millionaires and billionaires, and closing tax loopholes for the wealthy.
      “Trickle-down economics has never worked. It’s time to grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out,” Biden said. “We’re going reform corporate taxes so they pay their fair share – and help pay for the public investments their businesses will benefit from.”
      The messaging was a clear example of how much Biden has embraced and adopted progressive ideas and policies – even if many of the administration’s proposals are more modest, or watered-down versions of what leading progressive lawmakers have championed.
      5) The president pitched reforms that have bipartisan support – among voters, if not lawmakers
      Biden proposed major reforms to gun control and policing, and made a major pitch to protect voting rights. Republican lawmakers have fought the administration and their Democratic colleagues on all three issues. But polls indicate that though the country remains deeply divided on many issues, there’s actually broad, bipartisan support among voters for the president’s proposals.
      About two-thirds of Americans support tougher gun laws, a USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll found after the mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder this year. “The country supports reform, and the Congress should act,” Biden said.
      A March Morning Consult poll found that about 7 out of 10 voters, including majorities of Republicans, support the House’s sweeping elections reform measure. And while Republicans have big reservations about the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, the reform bill introduced by Democrats in Congress, polls indicate they largely support many provisions.
      Republicans, who have routinely denigrated and voted against Biden’s proposals, including his widely popular coronavirus relief plan and proposed infrastructure plan, have found themselves in an odd position of having to convince voters that they don’t actually want what they want.

      Updated
      at 12.41am EDT

      12.10am EDT
      00:10

      Progressive Democrats praise Biden on Covid but call for bolder action

      Adam Gabbatt

      The progressive wing of the Democratic party praised Joe Biden for his handling of the Covid-19 crisis in a response to the president’s first address to Congress, but urged the president to be bolder in tackling the climate crisis and economic inequality, and to do more to address “the burning crisis of structural racism in our country”.
      Jamaal Bowman, a Democratic congressman from New York, gave a speech responding to Biden’s address shortly after the president finished his address, as progressives seek to convince Biden to pursue more ambitious policies.
      Bowman hailed Biden’s handling of the Covid pandemic – in particular the aid given to schools in low income areas – but said the Democratic party, which controls the presidency, the House of Representatives and – narrowly – the Senate, could do more.
      “The proposals that President Biden has put forward over the last few weeks would represent important steps – but don’t go as big as we’d truly need in order to solve the crises of jobs, climate and care,” Bowman said.
      “We need to think bigger.”
      Read more:

      Updated
      at 12.21am EDT

      11.56pm EDT
      23:56

      Biden’s speech has earned praise from the former president Bill Clinton.

      Bill Clinton
      (@BillClinton)
      Great speech from @POTUS, great proposals, great call to action. Let’s do it!

      April 29, 2021

      11.44pm EDT
      23:44

      Some images from the evening … More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden will be flanked by two women as he addresses Congress in historic first

      by

      When Joe Biden gives his first speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, viewers will be treated to a historic first – the sight of two women, Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi, seated behind the president.Harris, the first female, Black and south Asian vice-president, and Pelosi, the first female House speaker, will take up their positions as Biden reflects on the first 99 days of his presidency and lays out his vision for the 1362 days to come.Their presence demonstrates a measure of progress in the quest for gender equality in the US – even if Harris and Pelosi will be flanking an aging white, male president – and Harris, in particular, proves a contrast to the past four years, which saw Donald Trump willed on by a bewitched Mike Pence.Biden is expected to use the speech, which comes before his 100th day in office on Thursday, to address the state of the Covid pandemic, and push the $2tn infrastructure plan he unveiled at the end of March. The president will also discuss the need for better healthcare, according to the Washington Post, and will renew his call for police reform.Viewers are likely to see Harris and Pelosi rise to their feet repeatedly during Biden’s address to applaud – something Pelosi largely avoided during Trump’s speeches to Congress.Biden, as vice-president, spent eight years seated behind Barack Obama as the latter addressed joint sessions of Congress, with Harris assuming Biden’s former seat for the first time on Wednesday.Pelosi has plenty of experience in these settings, having served as speaker of the House since 2019, and previously from 2007 to 2011.In 2019 her parental-style clapping of Donald Trump during his State of the Union address became a viral moment, while a year later she was lauded by the left after she tore up a copy of Trump’s speech.A president’s first address to Congress is usually an extravagant affair, witnessed by hundreds of guests, but the Covid pandemic means the audience was scaled back for Biden’s speech. Only one member of the supreme court – Chief Justice John Roberts – was invited, and members of Congress were told not to bring guests. More

    • 138 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      White House announces sweeping $1.8tn plan for childcare and universal preschool

      by

      The White House has introduced a sweeping $1.8tn plan that would invest billions in a national childcare program, universal preschool, tuition-free community college, health insurance subsidies and tax cuts for low- and middle-income workers.The American Families Plan, unveiled ahead of the president’s address to Congress, reflects many of Joe Biden’s campaign promises, and builds on his American Rescue Plan, which was the biggest expansion of the welfare state in decades. While the Rescue Plan was designed to bail the nation out of the depths of the coronavirus crisis – funding the $1,400 cheques that were sent to most Americans, and efforts to ramp up Covid-19 vaccinations – the plan unveiled on Wednesday aims to reshape the economy’s social infrastructure.The vision would be funded by rolling back Trump-era tax cuts, raising the capital gains rate for millionaires and billionaires, and closing tax loopholes for the wealthy, senior administration officials said in a call with members of the media.If the plan passes, about $300bn would be dedicated to funding education, $225bn would go toward childcare and another $225bn toward subsidizing paid family leave. The program reflects progressive ideas, including a national family leave program, which have only recently been adopted by mainstream Democratic lawmakers. The US is the only wealthy nation that does not have a federal policy for paid maternity leave, and is one of a very small group of wealthier countries that do not provide for paid paternity leave.During a press briefing last week, Brian Deese, a senior adviser to the president, said the plan “will provide critical support for children and families and, in – by doing so, critical support for our economy by boosting labor force participation and future economic competitiveness”.The plan excludes some provisions that leading Democrats, including the progressive senator Bernie Sanders and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, have pushed for, including reductions to consumer and government spending on prescriptions and an expansion to the eligibility criteria for Medicare, the government-run healthcare program.Administration officials did not clarify why those provisions were excluded from the plan, though they said that the president has a plan to address drug prices and Medicare eligibility.Republican lawmakers, who have staunchly opposed Biden’s spending proposals despite their broad popularity among both Democratic and Republican voters, are likely to bristle at this latest development. The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, who was unable to block the passage of the American Rescue Plan, this month vowed to fight Biden’s $2tn infrastructure plan “every step of the way”.Central to their opposition are Biden’s plans to increase taxes on the wealthy to fund investments in infrastructure, education and healthcare – a tactic that would unravel the Republicans’ crowning achievement during the Trump administration: the sweeping tax cuts passed in 2017.But Democrats don’t need bipartisan support. Although most bills must surpass 60 votes in the Senate, Democrats are able to pass budget-related measures with just 51 votes through a process called reconciliation. With representation in the chamber split 50-50 between parties, the vice-president, Kamala Harris, serves as a tie-breaking vote. More