President Joe Biden held his first CNN Town Hall meeting on Tuesday to deliver a new proposal.
What We Know:
- The televised conference was set for Biden to reveal his plans to push the country forward amidst the year-long pandemic. Biden presented a lack of certainty over determining a vaccine rollout date for the public but stated things would return to normal by next Christmas.
- According to CNN, the 46th president stated, “As my mother would say, with the grace of God and the goodwill of the neighbors, that by next Christmas I think we’ll be in a very different circumstance, God willing than we are today. A year from now, I think that there’ll be significantly fewer people having to be socially distanced, having to wear a mask.”
“I don’t want to over promise anything here,” he cautioned.
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Biden also described the last four years prior to his inauguration as a national fixation on Donald Trump. As Trump’s impeachment trial comes to an end, the president says he is looking forward to closing the dialog on the former president and refocusing the public’s attention back on to recovering from the pandemic.
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His primary goal, however, was to promote his American Recovery Plan. The proposal includes spending $1.9 trillion to provide relief for millions of Americans struggling to survive the pandemic. The package includes direct payments to families of up to $1,400 and funding for state and local governments to provide more vaccination efforts. The White House aims to pass the plan by mid-March after certain unemployment benefits expire.
As of late, House committees have begun writing individual sections of the measure to create the bill. Once completed, democrats intend to use a procedural process that would allow the bill to pass via a majority vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate as opposed to requiring 60 votes to overcome GOP objection.
