The White House will restrict travel from India starting at midnight on Tuesday, May 4, White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced on Friday.
Driving the news: The Biden administration cited a steep rise in coronavirus cases in the country and the possible emergence of multiple variants.
The White House on Tuesday formally declared its support for a House bill that would grant statehood to Washington, D.C., saying it would provide the residents of the District with “long overdue full representation in Congress.”
“Establishing the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth as the 51st state will make our Union stronger and more just,” the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement of administration policy. “Washington, D.C. has a robust economy, a rich culture, and a diverse population of Americans from all walks of life who are entitled to full and equal participation in our democracy.”
The statement further called for Congress “to provide for a swift and orderly transition to statehood for the people of Washington, D.C.” Continue reading.
The president met with lawmakers from both parties in an effort to show some flexibility on the size of his $2 trillion proposal and how to pay for it.
WASHINGTON — Facing opposition from Republicans and some centrist Democrats to parts of his $2 trillion infrastructure proposal, President Biden on Monday convened a bipartisan group of lawmakers at the White House, hoping to make progress toward a deal that can pass a bitterly divided Congress.
Sitting in the Oval Office with the group, Mr. Biden said he was “prepared to negotiate as to the extent of the infrastructure project, as well as how we pay for it.”
The meeting was an effort by the White House to show that it was willing to at least consider proposals to scale back or reshape the package and listen to alternatives to its own plan to pay for it by raising taxes on corporations. Continue reading.
President Biden is facing a ticking clock as he seeks to shepherd a massive infrastructure bill through Congress that is his next big legislative priority.
The complicated set of policy proposals funded in part by hiking the corporate tax rate and closing other loopholes divides Democrats and is likely to have unified GOP opposition.
It’s being offered as Biden rides a wave of momentum following the successful passage of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, and the quick rollout of vaccinations that has helped keep his approval ratings high. Continue reading.
President Biden on Friday proposed a $1.5 trillion annual budget for fiscal 2022, $118 billion higher than the regular 2020 appropriations, featuring a significant 16 percent boost in nondefense spending.
The $769 billion nondefense budget, which covers government departments such as Transportation, Health and Human Services, Justice and Education, is a $105.7 billion increase from the current level.
Administration officials, who say that the government has underinvested in domestic spending for years, noted that it would be roughly in line with the 30-year nondefense average of 3.3 percent of gross domestic product. Continue reading.
White House, lawmakers remain at odds over broader spending package.
President Biden’s jobs plan proposes a massive investment in home care for the elderly and people with disabilities, as America’s caretaking system faces strain from the nation’s looming demographic challenges.
The White House’s American Jobs Plan calls for spending about $400 billion over eight years on “home- or community-based care” for the elderly and people with disabilities. That amounts to roughly a fifth of the overall price tag of Biden’s plan, the first of two related economic proposals expected from the White House.
The push to substantially expand in-home health-care services was one of the last major provisions added to the jobs plan, according to two people with knowledge of internal White House deliberations. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters they were not authorized to disclose. Continue reading.
The White House is pushing an infrastructure bill that could reshape the discussion around capitalism as it seems to reestablish the federal government as a primary driver of how the economy should grow and function.
In addition to traditional infrastructure projects, Biden’s $2.25 trillion American Jobs Plan would make government investments in broadband, electric vehicles, climate change, elderly care, child benefits, housing and developing future technologies.
It would redefine classic infrastructure projects to include investments in workers and families paid for by tax hikes on corporations. Continue reading.
Ahead of speech in Pittsburgh, Biden administration releases sprawling effort to revamp U.S. transit, broadband, housing and more
The White House’s unveiling of a $2 trillion jobs, infrastructure and green energy proposal to reshape the U.S. economy met a chorus of opposition late Wednesday, with Republicans panning it as a partisan wish-list, some liberals challenging it as not sufficient to combat climate change and business groups rejecting its proposed tax hikes.
Under what the administration calls the American Jobs Plan, President Biden aims to tackle some of the nation’s most pressing problems — from climate change to decaying water systems to the nation’s crumbling infrastructure.
In a speech Wednesday afternoon at the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America Pittsburgh Training Center, Biden pitched his plan as a transformative effort to overhaul the nation’s economy. He called it the most significant federal jobs investment since World War II, saying it would put hundreds of thousands of electricians and laborers to work laying miles of electrical grid and capping hundreds of oil wells. He said the plan’s research funding would make America the global leader in emerging sectors such as battery technology, biotechnology and clean energy. Continue reading.
The White House rolled out initiatives Monday aimed at jump-starting the development of large offshore wind farms that together would power over 10 million homes.
Why it matters: The target of 30 gigawatts of generating capacity by 2030 would go well beyond the big projects already on the drawing boards.
White House officials are preparing to present President Biden with a roughly $3 trillion infrastructure and jobs package that includes high-profile domestic policy priorities such as free community college and universal prekindergarten, according to three people familiar with internal discussions.
After completing the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package this month, Biden administration officials are piecing together the next major legislative priority. Although no final announcement has been made, the White House is expected to push a multitrillion-dollar jobs and infrastructure plan as the centerpiece of the president’s “Build Back Better” agenda.
That effort is expected to be broken into two parts — one focused on infrastructure, and the other focused on other domestic priorities such as growing the newly expanded child tax credit for several years. The people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations, stressed that planning was preliminary and subject to change. Some aides said that the package’s final price tag remains unclear. Continue reading.
