President Biden passed the “first 50 days in office” mark this week and I think I can safely say that this is the most relaxed I’ve been in five years. Many people feel the same way – yes, there are still huge challenges facing this country, but the simple fact of having a decent, competent man in the Oval Office has been flat-out wonderful. No midnight rage-tweets, no calls to violence, no veering off course as people nitpick him from the right and left. President Biden just put his head down and got to work. Tens of millions of Americans have been vaccinated in Biden’s first 50 days. And over the past week, Biden succeeded in pushing his $1.9 trillion stimulus package through Congress.
Congress gave final approval on Wednesday to President Biden’s sweeping, nearly $1.9 trillion stimulus package, as Democrats acted over unified Republican opposition to push through an emergency pandemic aid plan that carries out a vast expansion of the country’s social safety net.
By a vote of 220 to 211, the House sent the measure to Mr. Biden for his signature, cementing one of the largest injections of federal aid since the Great Depression. It would provide another round of direct payments for Americans, an extension of federal jobless benefits and billions of dollars to distribute coronavirus vaccines and provide relief for schools, states, tribal governments and small businesses struggling during the pandemic.
“This legislation is about giving the backbone of this nation — the essential workers, the working people who built this country, the people who keep this country going — a fighting chance,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. He said he looked forward to signing what he called a “historic piece of legislation” on Friday at the White House.
The vote capped off a swift push by Mr. Biden and Democrats to address the toll of the coronavirus pandemic and begin putting in place their broader economic agenda. The bill is estimated to slash poverty by a third this year and potentially cut child poverty in half, with expansions of tax credits, food aid and rental and mortgage assistance.
Mr. Biden and congressional Democrats planned an elaborate effort to promote it throughout the country, seeking to highlight an array of measures including tax credits for children and enhanced unemployment aid through Labor Day. The effort will begin on Thursday with a prime-time address by Mr. Biden. The campaign is intended to build support for provisions they hope to make permanent in the years to come, and to punish Republicans politically for failing to support it.
Rather than haggle with Republicans who wanted to scale back the package, Democrats fast-tracked their own measure through the House and Senate without pausing to court Republican support. They stayed remarkably united in doing so, with just one Democrat, Representative Jared Golden of Maine, voting against the final measure.
“This is the most consequential legislation that many of us will ever be a party to,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said at a news conference after the bill’s passage.
It’s absolutely the most consequential legislation to pass in more than a decade, I would say. And the fact that Handsome Joe, who spent nearly his entire adult life in Washington, got it pushed through on Democrats’ terms is incredible. Biden will be taking a victory lap this evening as he gives his first primetime address in the East Room. Reportedly, the address will be under 20 minutes, because Joe has more work to do.
Meanwhile, some big dumb orange baby wants credit for everything that’s happening in the past 50 days.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.
Dear Donald Trump: If I want to hear “whiny baby noises” I will ask Alexa to play them. I don’t need you to provide them for her.
I’ve already seen people on social media complaining about missteps he’s taken and promises he hasn’t yet been able to keep, and I just…it’s not that I don’t want to hold him accountable. I do, and he should be held accountable. But my god. He’s trying to get us through a pandemic (which I think he’s succeeding at, with this stimulus package and the much more ample supply of vaccines going around now). We just went through four years of absolute terror. I feel calmer and happier and more hopeful than I have since 2016, and I just want five minutes to just breathe and enjoy the normalcy, the competency. He can and should be criticized but honestly, I’ve been so happy with 99% of what he’s done so far. I don’t know. I want to give him a little wiggle room in the beginning, because he inherited a nightmare.
He’s been president for two months. I think he’s doing okay.
This!
I still have moments where I’m like, it’s so quiet today. I haven’t fully gotten used to not having a sociopath in office.
Exactly!
Inheriting the pandemic alone would be a nightmare.
Inheriting the mess from the previous administration alone would be a nightmare.
Both combined? Unthinkable. And he’s doing it, God bless him.
I was personally disappointed when he was the presumptive nominee, but am fully recognizing that I was wrong. Very wrong. He’s the one we needed, with all that experience and knowledge and connections, he’s getting sh!t done, and putting good, experience people into positions to get even more done. Garland’s confirmation got overshadowed by the bill yesterday, but that’s great news.
He said we’d do 100 million shots in his first 100 days. As of yesterday, 50 days in, we’re at 95.7 million. My state has ramped up to about 70,000/day. In the darkest days of the pandemic, I never though we’d be here in a year, with several very effective vaccines already out there to that extent.
I’m so over people blaming the president for what is almost solely in the hands of Congress to do. I don’t know how people think we’re going to fix everything overnight with a 50/50 split. Half of them still haven’t figured out where the laws are made, apparently.
The “former guy” couldn’t resist getting in a racial slur on top of all else. I really would love to know how those Turkish scientists in Germany and Angela Merkel react to all his bragging about their work. Nagini resurfaced yesterday too for a photo op giving out USDA food for the government cheese program she claims to have invented despite its creation during the FDR administration. It had to kill her that they didn’t have any more of her fancy white TRUMP boxes for the food and she had to handle brown cartons with USDA clearly stamped on the sides.
Biden has every right to be proud of this bill; Pelosi too. It accomplishes so much. I’m particular happy about the arts funding. Museums, libraries, and theaters have been hit so hard. They lost al their revenues over the past year and had to lay off tens of thousands of people. The industries that cluster around them like bars and restaurants have also been decimated. Getting our cultural institutions up and running again helps us all.
The bill was so good even the Republicans who voted no on it were bragging about how good it is.
Right? Within minutes of the passage, several Republican members of Congress were tweeting about how wonderful it was and how amendment they added were going to be so fabulous for their constituents and people were pointing out that they voted AGAINST it.
Very proud of the Democrats for passing this legislation. And proud to have a landlord who let use our deposit and pay half rent until we got back on our feet. She and our credit cards are getting paid off and it will feel so good!