US President Joe Biden and top aides are planning a nationwide tour to sell Americans on the benefits of a US$1.9 trillion COVID-19 pandemic relief bill.
Biden is to launch the effort with a White House ceremony today to sign the bill, one of the largest economic stimulus measures in US history.
His administration then plans to take its sales pitch on the road, with Biden visiting Pennsylvania on Tuesday next week, and US Vice President Kamala Harris heading to California, Colorado and Nevada on Monday and Tuesday, White House officials said.
Photo: AP
The massive legislative package, which received final congressional approval on Wednesday, passed with Democratic majorities in the US House of Representatives and the US Senate, but no Republican votes.
The bill is to send US$1,400 checks to millions of households, extend unemployment benefits, and put billions of dollars into state budgets and industries after a year of lockdowns and other restrictions.
However, Biden is wary of what befell former US president Barack Obama, whom Biden served as vice president.
In 2009, Obama spent little time promoting a more than US$800 billion stimulus program that he and fellow Democrats pushed through Congress amid a deep recession.
The measure included stimulus checks, tax cuts, and other support for businesses, workers and unemployed people.
However, Republicans, who almost unanimously opposed the measure, captured the House in 2010, narrowed Democrats’ lead in the Senate and torpedoed most of Obama’s policies.
“We didn’t do enough to explain to the American people what the benefits were” in 2009, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki, a veteran of the Obama administration, told reporters on Wednesday.
Joshua Karp, a Democratic strategist, said that it was important for Democrats to “go out and tell people about what this bill does and who this bill helps.”
“There is real reason for hope, folks,” Biden said on Wednesday. “There is real reason for hope, I promise you.”
The White House plans to put surrogates and senior administration officials on local TV across the country, and mobilize more than 400 mayors and governors to talk about what the plan means for them and their communities.
“At every step of the way, we’re going to communicate how this will make their lives better,” deputy White House chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon said in an internal staff memo.
In 2009, the US economy was still contracting as the ripples of a banking crisis spread.
The Biden stimulus comes as the economy is forecast to grow as much as 7 percent this year as the country reopens.
Republicans say that the Democrats never really made a serious effort to try to win some of them over, and that voters will sour over the size of the legislation and deepened deficit spending.
US Representative Liz Cheney previewed how her party might attack the measure, saying in a statement that only a small fraction of the US$1.9 trillion was aimed for pandemic relief, and warning it might lead to tax increases.
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