Category: Joe Biden

ABC Anchor Fact-Checks GOP Senator’s False Claim About Infrastructure Spending

ABC News anchor Martha Raddatz immediately corrected Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) on Sunday when he tossed out a falsehood on the Biden administration’s infrastructure proposal. In recent weeks, Republicans have repeatedly claimed that only six percent of the $2 trillion spending plan is devoted to “traditional” infrastructure, something that fact-checkers have found to be untrue.

With Republican senators unveiling a $548 billion counteroffer, Barrasso repeated the false claim on ABC’s This Week, claiming that while “only six percent of the money goes to bridges and things,” the rest of Biden’s plan is focused on “electric cars.” Raddatz immediately corrected the record.

“The six percent for roads and bridges figures you and other GOP leaders have cited has been fact-checked multiple times. The total amount for what you have called traditional infrastructure, roads, bridges, waterways, public transit is more than 25 percent of the Biden plan,” she noted. The Republican lawmaker, for his part, did not object to the fact check. Continue reading.

GOP ramps up attacks on Biden’s border wall freeze

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Republicans in Congress are increasingly lashing out at President Biden’s decision to freeze funding for the wall along the southern border.

GOP lawmakers are zeroing in on Biden’s proclamation from January, immediately upon taking office, in which he followed through on a campaign promise to halt construction of the wall, which had become the centerpiece of former President Trump’s hard-line immigration policies.

The White House on Jan. 20 said it would take 60 days to review the use of border wall funds. Continue reading.

Biden’s Big History Lesson For Republicans

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Embedded in Joe Biden’s first speech to Congress was a crucial lesson in our nation’s economic history that every American ought to understand. 

Explaining why he proposes to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the construction of new power grids, broadband internet connections and transportation systems, the president reminded us of the public investments that have “transformed America” into a prosperous world power. It is a lesson too often and too easily forgotten amid the incessant propaganda, imbibed by almost all of us from an early age, about the “magic of the free market,” the “dead hand of government” and various equally hoary conservative cliches.

Markets are marvelous, but government has been essential in growing and regulating the economy from the republic’s very beginning. Biden cited the transcontinental railroad and the interstate highway system, the construction of public schools and colleges that enabled universal education, the medical and scientific advances that sprang from the space program and defense industries – but his speech could well have continued for quite a while in that same vein. Political leaders from Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln to Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy all have promoted public investment in research, infrastructure and people as the prerequisites of progress, and sometimes even national survival. Continue reading.

The number of migrant children in Border Patrol custody is down significantly.

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The Biden administration is starting to see some success in its efforts to suitably house the migrant children flooding to the southwest border, with a fraction of the number of children in Customs and Border Protection custody than there were a month ago.

Over the past month, the number of migrant children in the jail-like facilities of the Border Patrol dropped 83 percent, from 5,767 on March 29 to 954 on Thursday, according to government statistics. The length of time children are staying in border shelters is down as well, from an average of 133 hours to 28. By law, children are not supposed to stay in border shelters for more than 72 hours.

The improvements are attributable in part to an increase in facilities overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services where children can be housed under better living conditions. Continue reading.

Biden administration to return billions in border wall funding Trump diverted from Pentagon

All related construction contracts will be canceled, an official told ABC News. 

The Biden administration is returning to the Pentagon billions in funds diverted by President Donald Trump to build the wall at the southwestern border, and plans to cancel all related construction contracts, an administration official told ABC News on Friday.

“Border wall construction under the previous administration tied up more than $14 billion in taxpayer funds, shortchanged our military, and diverted attention away from genuine security challenges, like human traffickers. Rushed and haphazard wall construction also resulted in serious life, safety, and environmental issues,” the official said.

Amid its ongoing review to determine the fate of Trump’s border wall, the Biden administration also said it would launch two new projects along the 1,900-mile U.S.-Mexico border: one to fill holes in the Rio Grande Valley levee system left by the wall construction project, and another to address soil erosion in a 14-mile stretch of barrier construction by the Trump administration near San Diego, California. Continue reading.

Newsmax host attacks Biden for giving his wife a dandelion — and suggests it will ‘give everybody asthma’

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Newsmax host Grant Stinchfield lobbed a scientifically illiterate attack against President Joe Biden this week after the president was filmed giving a dandelion to first lady Jill Biden.

While walking to Marine One on Thursday, Biden bent down to the ground and picked up a dandelion seed head and handed it to his wife before the couple boarded the helicopter.

Stinchfield, however, thought it was inexplicable that the president would give his wife the dandelion, which he bizarrely said “hasn’t even blossomed into a flower yet.” Continue reading.

McConnell accuses Biden of ‘bait and switch’ for keeping campaign promises

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Sen. Mitch McConnell accused President Joe Biden of running as a moderate but not governing as one.

Speaking to reporters, McConnell said:

With regard to the direction of the Biden administration so far, I think it can best be described as the “Biden bait and switch.” President Biden ran as a moderate, but I’m hard pressed to think of anything at all that he’s done — so far — that would indicate some degree of moderation.

The bait is always the title, like the massive COVID bill, but with only 1% for vaccines and 9% for health care. Or infrastructure, which is the bait, but the details involve more money for electric cars than for most projects that most of us consider infrastructure. And of course a massive tax increase, undoing the 2017 tax bill, which produced the biggest, best economy in 50 years as recently as February of 2020. Or a bill styled as voting rights, which in fact is a carefully designed plan for the Democrats to take over all of American elections all across the country.

But while it is clear that McConnell does not back Biden’s agenda, it is anything but a “bait and switch.” His policy agenda as president has been consistent with the proposals he outlined as a candidate. Continue reading.

Biden’s Betting On Public Support To Push His Agenda. Polls Show His Big Spending Packages Have It.

In his address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night, President Biden spent a lot of time extolling the virtues of the three massive spending packages that have quickly become centerpieces of his agenda: the $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus package, a $2 trillion infrastructure bill and a $1.8 trillion plan for child care, universal prekindergarten and more.

The first part of Biden’s agenda, his coronavirus stimulus package, has consistently garnered high approval numbers— both when it was first being considered and when it was enacted last month. A new ABC News/Washington Post poll(conducted April 18-21) has found that it’s still popular: 65 percent of Americans support it, and just 31 percent oppose it.

But what about the other two plans, which have yet to make it through Congress? Continue reading.

Biden Nominees Poised To Take Control Of Postal Service, Oust DeJoy

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A Senate committee voted in favor of President Joe Biden’s three nominees for governing board overseeing the U.S. Postal Service (USPS).

According to the Associated Press, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday approved the president’s three nominees: “Ron Stroman, a former deputy postmaster general; Amber McReynolds, who leads the nonprofit National Vote at Home Institute; and Anton Hajjar, the former general counsel of the American Postal Workers Union.”

The vote comes as lawmakers train their focus on restoring public confidence and trust in the U.S. Postal Service. Since last year, the postal service has undergone a number of drastic changes under the leadership of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a known supporter of President Donald Trump and a major donor for the Republican Party. Continue reading.

Why are Republicans touting parts of Biden’s covid relief plan?

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Not a single Republican lawmaker voted for the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, President Biden’s coronavirus relief package that doled out $1,400 checks for many Americans and provided aid to state and local governments, restaurants and businesses. The bill passed with only narrow majorities, each party stuck in its own corner.

Biden’s bill came just weeks after Congress had passed a coronavirus relief package under President Donald Trump, so many Republicans argued it was too much too soon. Of course, one cannot discount the idea that a change in presidents might have also had something to do with their votes.

Nevertheless, Republicans have been touting elements of the bill on Twitter and in news releases. Any big bill is going to have elements in it that might have, in other circumstances, won the support of lawmakers. Moreover, it might be worth letting constituents know about the potential largesse available from the federal government. Continue reading.