Joseph Robinette Biden

“ The American Rescue Plan finishes the job of getting a total of two hundred thou- — or $20,000 to — direct payments to people. Getting direct relief to people is a lifeline for them and it bumps our economy into higher gear. ”

“ So many women are facing the devastating choice between a paycheck, and care and education of their child. Our cities and towns have shed 1.3 million jobs since just last March: educators, nurses, cops, firefighters, other essential workers.
The economic toll of this pandemic continues to tear through our country as brutally as the virus itself. And so we need to comfort [confront] the economic — you know, we just have to step up. The economic toll we have to address with the same aggressiveness and seriousness of purpose as we do the virus. ”

“ And my administration will be there every step of the way with you because when people in this country need help, they’re not Democrats or Republicans; they’re all Americans. And people who need work, they’re the people getting sick from COVID, and people facing eviction, people going hungry, people struggling with the opioid crisis, and people who need broadband. They’re not Democrats or Republicans; they’re our fellow Americans. ”

“ We’ll work with you to create more places where Americans can get vaccinated, supporting communities in high-volume vaccine centers and across your states.
The result is that we have doubled the daily vaccination rate from where it was when we took office, and we’ve completed 50 million shots in 37 days. And we’re now — we’ve now given more shots than any nation in the entire world. Nearly 60 percent of people over the age of 75 have now received at least one shot. It was 14 percent six weeks ago. Close to 50 percent — because of your help — of the people over 65 have received one shot. ”

“ And we created, in the process — you all created in the process over thousands — hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs.
Now, economists tell us that saved us from a depression. Well, that’s the approach I think we need to take today. But there’s one big difference: We need to be more ambitious right now. The greatest risk from all the major economists, from Wall Street to overseas to — to the major think tanks, is that we don’t do enough of what is needed; it’s when we do too little. ”

“ And as a country, we have to remember those we lost but particularly those we left behind. But as we remember, we also have to act to end the politics of misinformation that has divided families, communities, and the country, and that has cost too many lives already. ”

“ And we’re all — and we’ve all seen in the news that Johnson & Johnson vaccine is — if the FDA approved the use of this new vaccine, we would plan to roll out as quickly as Johnson & Johnson can make the vaccine.
Of course, it’s not just getting the vaccines; it’s getting the vaccines in arms. And this is another place where your work and our partnership is making a big difference. I’ve signed an order to allow retired doctors and nurses to give shots. ”

“ But all kidding aside, I’m anxious to see — I wish you could all be here because it’s much better if we’re all — we all do better when we’re able to look at each other in the eye and know what we’re talking about. ”

“ We invested in the future, rebuilding roads and bridges; making the biggest clean energy investment in history and the single biggest investment in infrastructure since Eisenhower’s interstate highway program. ”

“ And there’s more to the American Rescue Plan, and much more it will do: provide flexible aid to your cities and states to help essential workers stay in the job and essential services keep going. It provides rent relief, food, and nutrition, and assistance to millions of children and families facing hunger. ”

“ We’ve increased vaccine allocations as — as Andrew said — as the Governor said — to your states by almost 70 percent since coming into office, whatever number days ago it’s been — 37 or something like that. We secured enough vaccine to supply 300 million Americans — 300 million — to take care of all their needs, in terms of vaccination, by the end of July. ”

“ Instead of chasing COVID-19, it allows us to get ahead of it with more testing, supplies, vaccinations. It gets our kids back to school safely — many of you are already doing that — so students can catch up on learning they’ve lost, and parents can finally catch a break. ”

“ An analysis by — an analysis by Moody’s estimates that it will help the economy create 7 million more jobs this year alone. And it would be on the way to another 18 million jobs, Moody’s estimates, would be created over the next four years with our Build Back Better recovery plan. ”

“ At the same time, we’re also delivering more than 25 million masks — ordered this last week — 25 million masks to over 60,000 food pantries, soup kitchens, community health centers all across America, helping protect some of our nation’s most vulnerable people. ”