Biden sells his rescue plan: “Shots in the arm and money in the bag”

Washington – President Joe Biden launched his campaign on Monday to promote the $ 1.9 billion bailout with a promise to boost the vaccination campaign and economic aid, though the situation at the border with Mexico caught some of his attention.

Speaking at the White House, Biden kicked off his “Help is Here” campaign, which will take him to various states of the country starting Tuesday from Tuesday to explain to Americans how the country’s recently approved stimulus package can improve their lives.

In the next ten days, the president assured the country will achieve two “gigantic goals”: to deliver 100 million doses of the vaccine. COVID-19 since Biden came to power, handing out “100 million checks” to Americans to support the economy.

“(We will have) Vaccines in our arms and money in our pockets,” Biden said.

A promise almost fulfilled

The United States has already delivered more than 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since the vaccination campaign began in December, but only 92.6 million of those have been delivered after Biden took power on January 20.

If vaccination coverage remains stable, it is expected that by the end of this week, Biden will be able to deliver on his promise that 100 million doses would be administered during his first 100 days in office, and he will do so more than a month before it is fulfilled. . that period, which ends on April 30.

“We need to show Americans that their government can help them, without waste or fraud, that we can vaccinate the nation and get children to school safely,” the president said.

The “czar” of the stimulus plan

To do this, Biden announced on Monday the appointment of a new “Tsar” to the White House to be responsible for implementing the stimulus plan approved last week, which includes strong economic incentives that could, among other things, halve poverty. in the United States.

This is Gene Sperling, who was an economic adviser to the last two Democratic leaders of the United States, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and who will see the huge investments of the new package blossom without a hitch.

Gene will be on the phone with the mayors and governors of republican and democratic states. It will be a source of constant communication, instruction and support, and above all a way for us to be accountable and do the work that needs to be done, ”explains the president.

The intense campaign that Biden has programmed to “sell” the stimulus plan to Americans has to do with what he believes was a mistake made by former President Barack Obama.

That former president managed to pass a stimulus plan in 2009 but spent almost no resources promoting it, and “paid the price for that humility” by slapping his party in the parliamentary election the following year, Biden said in February. .

Biden wants his stimulus plan to have the opposite effect and help the Democrats gain ground in Congress in the 2022 parliamentary election.

Kamala Harris’ first official tour

For this reason, he will travel to Pennsylvania next Tuesday and Georgia on Friday to settle the benefits of the stimulus package.

The Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, and her husband, Doug Emhoff, were also involved in the campaign and this Monday they traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada, while the first lady, Jill Biden, visited the city of Burlington. , in New Jersey.

“You are the lifeblood of the economy,” Harris told entrepreneurs Kristen and Carlos Corral, owners of a vegan Mexican taqueria called Tacotarian that she visited in Las Vegas.

This was the first official trip as vice president for Harris, who also visited a vaccination center and the Culinary Academy in Las Vegas, and will head to Denver, Colorado on Tuesday.

The big distraction at the border

Despite efforts by Biden and Harris to keep the stimulus plan, which marks their first White House victory, in the spotlight, the massive arrival of thousands of undocumented minors to the border with Mexico is drawing a lot of attention in the country.

A group of Republican lawmakers led by the leader of the opposition minority in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, visited the border in the city of El Paso, Texas, on Monday, from which they harshly criticized Biden’s management.

“This crisis is the result of presidential politics,” McCarthy said at a news conference after visiting a detention center.

The pressure forced White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki on Monday to defend the fact that Biden is going on a tour to promote the bailout, but has no intention of visiting the border, by getting the president to focus on ‘developing solutions’. situation that does not necessarily involve moving there.