The president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden, during his announcement this Thursday in Wilmington (Delaware) .JIM WATSON / AFP
The president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden, announced this Thursday a stimulus package worth 1.9 trillion dollars to combat the health emergency and ward off the risk of recession.
The long-awaited message to the nation, the content of which, released to the press hours before, had given some verve to the activity of the Stock Exchange.
The announcement is interpreted as a rudder in the response to the coronavirus crisis, in which the US faces the harshest days of the pandemic with 385,000 deaths, and at the same time as the comprehensive program that the Democrats had been demanding for months, just six days after Biden takes office.
The plan consists of several items, one of them of 400,000 million to directly combat the pandemic, with basic measures such as accelerating the distribution of the vaccine and reopening schools during his first 100 days of government, in which the veteran politician hopes they can 100 million Americans get vaccinated.
Another $ 350 billion will go to help state and local governments bridge budget deficits.
But the lion's share of this huge stimulus package is targeting workers and families, with $ 1 trillion in aid consisting of direct checks worth $ 1,400 (more than double the $ 600 approved in Congress' last aid program. ), more generous unemployment benefits, one hundred dollars more a week with extension until September;
Paid leave for workers who suffer from covid-19 and broader subsidies to take care of children.
Another 440,000 million will go to support small and medium-sized companies and communities especially affected by the pandemic.
As complementary support to stimulate the economic recovery, the 46th US president promised the creation of "millions of jobs" in the industry.
Imagine the future: 'made in America';
"entirely made in America and by American [workers]," he said, noting that taxpayers' money will be used to rebuild the country.
"We will buy American products, sustaining millions of jobs in US industry," he said, in an imitation of Trump's economic nationalism that Biden already raised during the election campaign.
“It is not difficult to see that we are in the midst of an economic crisis like those that only affect one of many generations, with a public health crisis in parallel.
We cannot afford to sit idly by, "Biden said, in an unusually long televised address in which he spared no criticism of the inaction of the outgoing Administration and" the failure "in the distribution of the vaccine.
"The benefits [of the plan] will far exceed its cost," he promised.
With his message, Biden sets the political and economic agenda against the coronavirus, the issue that arouses all his sleeplessness, even before reaching the White House.
But the political landscape, dominated by the second
impeachment
against Donald Trump, and the contested distribution of seats in the Senate, which must approve a plan as expensive as this one, cast certain shadows on its immediate viability, according to
The New York Times
.
However, the president-elect was confident that the package will be processed without delay through the procedures of the impeachment of Trump.