WILMINGTON, Delaware--President-elect Joe Biden outlined a $1.9 trillion stimulus package proposal on Thursday, saying bold investment was needed to jump-start the economy and accelerate the distribution of vaccines to bring the coronavirus under control.
Biden campaigned last year on a promise to take the pandemic more seriously than President Donald Trump, and the package aims to put that pledge into action with an influx of resources for the COVID-19 response and economic recovery.
"A crisis of deep human suffering is in plain sight, and there's no time to waste," Biden said in prime-time remarks from Delaware. "We have to act and we have to act now."
The aid package includes $415 billion to bolster the response to the virus and the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, some $1 trillion in direct relief to households, and roughly $440 billion for small businesses and communities particularly hard hit by the pandemic.
Stimulus payment checks would be issued for $1,400 - on top of the $600 checks delivered by the last congressional stimulus legislation. Supplemental unemployment insurance would also increase to $400 a week from $300 a week now and would be extended to September.
Biden's plan is meant to kick off his time in office with a large bill that sets his short-term agenda into motion quickly: helping the economy and getting a handle on a virus that has killed more than 385,000 people in the United States as of Thursday.
It also provides a sharp contrast with Trump, who spent the last months of his administration seeking to undermine Biden's election victory rather than focusing on additional coronavirus relief. Trump, who leaves office on Wednesday, did support $2,000 payments to Americans, however. Many Republicans in Congress balked at the price tag for such payments.
Biden will face similar hurdles with his proposals, which come on the heels of a $900 billion aid package Congress passed in December. But he will be helped by the fact that his fellow Democrats will control both the House and the Senate. Chuck Schumer, who is about to lead a narrow Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that Biden's package was "the right approach" and pledged to begin working on legislation.
The incoming president will seek to pass the legislation even as his predecessor faces an impeachment trial. The Democratic-led House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump on Wednesday, making him the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice. Ten of his fellow Republicans joined Democrats to charge him with inciting an insurrection in last week's deadly rampage at the Capitol.
The impeachment proceedings threaten to hang over the beginning of Biden's term, and Biden has encouraged lawmakers to handle the trial while also moving forward with his agenda.
