Tag: Joe Biden

 

(CNN)President Joe Biden’s rejection of calls to eliminate up to $50,000 of student loan debt has prompted sharp responses from his allies on Capitol Hill, with leading liberals vowing to push ahead with the plan and the top Senate Democrat calling for them to “keep fighting.”

In a joint statement on Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren said, “Cancelling $50,000 in federal student loan debt will help close the racial wealth gap, benefit the 40% of borrowers who do not have a college degree, and help stimulate the economy. It’s time to act. We will keep fighting.”

The comments are a rebuke to Biden and a way to put pressure on the administration after the President made clear during Tuesday night’s CNN town hall that he disagrees with other members of his party who want to cancel $50,000 of student debt per borrower.

“I will not make that happen,” Biden said after a member of the audience said his proposal to cancel $10,000 per borrower doesn’t go far enough.

Source: AOC, Chuck Schumer unhappy with Biden’s reluctance to cancel $50,000 in student debt – CNNPolitics

Joe Biden waited nearly four decades to become the most powerful man in the free world. Now that he is, he’s making himself scarce.

Biden is leaning on doctors and health experts to publicly detail his Covid policy. He’s relying on his Cabinet, economic advisers and other high-ranking administration officials to help sell his nearly $2 trillion rescue package. Biden’s press team, meanwhile, is standing in for their boss by blanketing TV programs with pledges to tell the truth even when it’s inconvenient. It’s one of the more arresting shifts after four years of a president who delighted in torturing the media with sudden pronouncements that often surprised and befuddled his own advisers.

“He trusts them, and Americans will trust experts,” John Anzalone, a top Biden adviser and campaign pollster, said of the president’s approach to his team. “Plus,” he added, “Biden is dealing with multiple crises and is a good delegator.”

White House aides describe the strategy not so much as delegation but as an concerted effort to restore confidence with a public battered by the contradictory messaging and scorched-earth politics of the Trump years. In just over a week, the White House has booked 80 TV and radio interviews with 20 senior administration officials, members of the Covid-19 response team and Cabinet secretary designates. They’ve had officials on each major network, booking them on every Sunday show in the first week. And they worked with CNN to have three of the doctors in charge of its Covid-19 response take questions from the public during a coronavirus town hall, said Mariel Sáez, the White House director of broadcast media.

Who’s not been booked for any sit-down interviews: Biden.

But the president hasn’t exactly been absent either. He appeared for brief ceremonies where he signed executive orders and delivered mostly scripted remarks. He’s taken a handful of questions from the news media. And he’s expected to give a major foreign policy address on Monday amid a planned trip to the State Department, his first visit to a Cabinet agency.

Source: Why you haven’t seen a sit-down Biden interview yet – POLITICO

President Joe Biden on Tuesday rolled out an additional slate of executive actions to address racial equity, a move to fulfill a key campaign promise that he made during the height of this past summer’s protests.

Biden said that Tuesday’s actions are a direct response to the groundswell of protests that emerged following the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by Minnesota police and the resulting calls for racial justice. In brief remarks at the White House, the president said Floyd’s death “opened the eyes of millions” and paved the way for change.

Source: Biden issues executive orders promoting racial equity – POLITICO

By Allan Smith

President Joe Biden will sign an executive order Monday aimed at promoting the “Buy American” agenda he campaigned on last year, which seeks to bolster U.S. manufacturing through the federal procurement process.

The executive order directs agencies to strengthen requirements about purchasing products and services from U.S. workers and businesses, cuts some red tape and creates a position in the Office of Management and Budget responsible for enforcing the directive, an administration official told reporters on a conference call Sunday.

The order will also reiterate the Biden administration’s support for the Jones Act, which limits foreign maritime shipping between U.S. ports to U.S.-made or -owned vessels.

During the campaign, Biden proposed a Buy American plan calling for a $400 billion, four-year increase in government purchasing of U.S.-made products and services. Former President Donald Trump made a similar push, but the Biden administration official said the new effort is a “clear directive” with a “clear direction.”

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Source: Biden to sign ‘Buy American’ executive order Monday

President Joe Biden has promised to address Social Security reform. Accomplishing that could seal his presidential legacy, one expert says.

Source: Biden has promised to reform Social Security — some changes could come as soon as this year

Source: Biden to propose 8-year citizenship path for immigrants

President Joe Biden will have both houses of Congress in his corner — by some of the narrowest margins in history — but that is not a free pass, experts say.

“Unified government isn’t enough to let a party pass their legislative dreams into reality,” James Curry, a congressional scholar at the University of Utah, told The Post.

When Georgia’s runoff races flipped two red Senate seats blue Tuesday, Congress’s upper body split 50-50. With soon-to-be-veep Kamala Harris as Senate tie-breaker, Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer will assume operational control — but only barely.

“The Georgia results make Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Jon Tester of Montana, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia the most powerful people in America,” said Ryan Girdusky, a writer on populist politics.

As the most moderate Democrats in the Senate, they’ll be deal-breakers on party lefties’ most progressive agenda items. And with their staunch support of the filibuster — the Senate rule requiring 60 votes to pass most legislation — Schumer’s bills can’t be too extreme for at least 10 Republicans’ liking.

“Basically, Democrats will only be able to get whatever it is that Manchin and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi can agree on,” political consultant Stewart Verdery said.

LIKELY

Executive Orders on climate and more

With no help from Congress, Biden will unilaterally sign back on to the Paris Climate Accords, rejoin the World Health Organization, end travel restrictions on some Muslim countries, and reinstate DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that protects young illegal immigrants.“Trump got those things and more done through executive orders and regulatory changes,” said David Lublin, a professor at American University. “Biden will follow Trump’s lead.”

Source: What Joe Biden and Dems can and can’t do with control of Congress

By Charles Lipson:

It’s important to remember that conventional wisdom is not always wise. It emerges, after all, from a cloistered echo chamber in New York City and Washington, D.C., and is constantly reinforced, not corrected, by the chattering class that promotes it. This insularity was perfectly captured by Pauline Kael’s puckish comment after Richard Nixon’s landslide reelection. The New Yorker’s famed film critic was an early observer of America’s growing culture gap. “I only know one person who voted for Nixon,” she said. “Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.”

Today, elites smell them. That is what disgraced FBI man Peter Strzok actually said after a trip to Walmart, and he and his ilk recoil, naturally, from the plebian aroma. But theirs is the nose of a sommelier, not a hunting dog. It failed to sniff out the social movement that elected Donald Trump in 2016, and today it is missing the rage sweeping about half the country. The fury comes from folks who don’t subscribe to the New York Times, let alone the New Yorker, and who don’t habituate yoga studios while carrying NPR tote bags, either. These “deplorables,” to use one memorable description, watch pro football, know when deer season begins, and think they are being badly governed by an unelected caste whose education, expertise, and ideology have not improved the lives of ordinary Americans. They are convinced that corporate suits who are currently lecturing them about race relations have outsourced their jobs and used the profits to buy political influence, as well as grandiose mansions. They know in their gut that this elite class has only contempt for them.

Source: Biden Family Corruption Does Matter | RealClearPolitics

President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to reassert the United States’ leadership role on the global stage through a series of day-one executive actions that would mark a drastic turn from outgoing President Donald Trump’s policies.

Source: Joe Biden plans executive actions that would undo Trump’s policies – CNNPolitics

GAFFE-machine Joe Biden has struck again – confusing the Philadelphia Eagles logo for a Delaware college emblem on his OWN jacket.

Speaking to a socially distanced crowd in Philadelphia, Biden said: “I was very happy to have the moniker of being known as Pennsylvania’s third senator.

“I know Philadelphia well. I married a Philly girl by the way.”

Biden’s supporters immediately started honking horns in their vehicles to show their approval.

Then, looking down at his jacket, Biden adds, “by the way I got my Eagles jacket on.”

This public blunder prompted a swift rebuke on Twitter.

Zach Parkinson, the deputy director of communications for President Donald Trump’s campaign, tweeted: “This ‘Eagles’ jacket Biden claims he’s wearing to try and show how much he’s in touch with Pennsylvania?

“It’s a Delaware Blue Hens jacket.”

Biden attended the University of Delaware, graduating from the institution in 1965 with a double major in history and political science.

He wrote about playing in the uni’s freshman football team in his memoir Promises to Keep.

Source: Joe Biden makes ANOTHER gaffe as he confuses Philadelphia Eagles logo with the Delaware college emblem on his own jacket