HerStory Made - Bulletpoint Highlights From Biden's First Address to Congress
By: Kayla Pasacreta
As President Biden edges near his first 100 days in office, he delivered his first address to Congress to give a progress report on the pandemic and lay out his legislative priorities and objectives. In case you missed Wednesday night’s address, we got you in bulletpoints below!
The night started out with a historic view. For the first time in history, two women sat on the dais behind the presidential podium. Vice-President Harris and Speaker Pelosi are the first two women to be jointly seated center stage during a Presidential address.
Biden unveiled his $1.8 trillion American Families Plan that would give all Americans access to community college, preschool, affordable child care, family paid leave, and other initiatives. The plan brings back “big government” to increase federal support for American families. The plan would expand the time frame for publicly funded schooling in the United States from 13 years to 17 years, with two of those years being for universal preschool, two free years of community college, and 12 weeks of guaranteed paid family and medical leave. And how exactly does Biden plan to pay for this plan? By taxing the rich — the President proposed a 1% wealth tax on Americans earning more than $400,000 a year.
Missing from this plan: any mention of student loan debt or the $50,000 student loan erasure that Sen. Chuck Schumer progressives have advocated for the President to do by executive order.
“America is on the move again.” President Biden took achievement for surpassing his goal of 100 million vaccine shots in his first 100 days, “We will have provided over 220 million Covid shots in 100 days,” adding that nearly 70 percent of seniors have now been vaccinated against the virus. Another big stat: senior deaths are down 80 percent since January, and more than half of adults have gotten at least one shot.
The President called on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act by the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s death, which would be by the end of May. The passage of the bill would be a start towards Biden’s promise to initiate substantial police reform at the federal level. The bill would set national standards for police behavior, ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants, restrict the transfer of military weaponry to police forces, and require use of bodycams for federal assistance. “Now is our opportunity to make real progress,” the President said.
Biden called for the passage of the PRO Act, pro-union legislation to add further protections of workers, and added, “By the way: While you’re thinking of sending things to my desk, let’s raise the minimum wage to $15. No one working 40 hours a week should live below the poverty line.” Biden initially proposed including the $15 minimum wage in the COVID-19 relief bill that passed in March, but the White House dropped the provision when they were not able to garner enough support from all Democratic senators. Biden is set to sign an executive order to increase the minimum wage to $15 for federal contractors, which in turn could benefit a number of other workers.
“White supremacy is terrorism,” - Biden called out white supremacy as a terrorist threat to the country that poses a greater risk than foreign actors. "We won't ignore what our intelligence agencies have determined to be the most lethal terrorist threat to our homeland today: White supremacy is terrorism,” Biden cautioned.
Biden mentioned the current wave of voter suppression, and called on Congress to instill federal protections by passing the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
What did you think of the President’s first address to Congress?
