| President Biden told Congress and the American people on Wednesday that “millions of jobs” can result from his proposals to spend $4 trillion in less than a decade to expand the government’s reach into upgraded roads, broadband, health care, child care, community college and electric vehicles. “Let’s get it done this year,” he said during his first, hour-long address to a joint session of Congress. (Speech transcript is HERE). Speaking to a smaller group of lawmakers because of COVID-19 precautions, the president called his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan “a blue-collar blueprint to build America,” and he described his latest $1.8 billion American Families Plan as a “once-in-a-generation” investment that could help the United States win a competition “for the future,” including with China. The president took stock of his first 100 days in office by heralding his administration’s achievements against the coronavirus. He pointed to work done with Congress to pass relief legislation as evidence that the White House, Congress and government can move from a pandemic to rebuilding a nation he suggested has been on the wane. Biden will be in Atlanta today to mark his first months in office with a drive-in rally, shifting his focus from crisis management to the arguably tougher task of legislating in a bitterly partisan Congress, with no Democrats to spare in either chamber. During a speech that presented a decidedly progressive picture of American competitiveness, racial equity, government intervention and economic fairness, the president did not assail Republicans seated in front of him, who voted in lockstep against the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill. The Hill: Biden makes his case for sweeping change. The Hill: Biden: “Trickle-down economics has never worked.” Dan Balz, The Washington Post analysis: At 100 days, Biden seeks to leverage narrow majorities to reverse the Reagan era. John Harris, Politico magazine analysis: With the most ideologically ambitious speech of any Democratic president in decades, Biden aims to splinter the Trump coalition. “I want to make sure the American people understand,” the president added, that the law he signed to help working-class and middle-income families who have been hardest hit by the contagion reached beyond delivering hundreds of millions of doses of vaccines. The relief law, he said, put the United States on track to “cut child poverty in America in half this year. In the process, the economy created more than 1.3 million new jobs in 100 days.” The president’s unspoken point: Trust Democrats; trust government. Biden mostly stuck to the White House-prepared script, improvising a few folksy greetings (“thanks for having me,” he told Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and hailing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for his graciousness in renaming a 2016 law that funded cancer research for Biden’s late son, Beau, who died of brain cancer. It was so quiet in the chamber at one point that a lawmaker’s ringing cellphone could clearly be heard as the president began his explanation about overhauling corporate taxes to pay for some of the proposed new spending he had just described. The Washington Post: Biden’s sweeping agenda. Democrats leaped to their feet at least 57 times to applaud the president, joined by most Republicans when Biden hailed the achievements and the historical importance of the first female Speaker and first female vice president, both standing with him. Biden said Vice President Harris, in addition to managing the U.S. response to the surge of migrants and other “root causes” of the border crisis, will work on a specific piece of their jobs plan, ensuring that “every American” is connected with high-speed internet, “including 35 percent of rural Americans who still don’t have it.” “I am asking the vice president to help lead this effort because I know it will get done,” he added. 
© Getty Images After pitching the major plans, Biden turned his attention to other policy issues, domestic and international. He waded into policing and racial justice just a week after the murder conviction of Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd. Biden made news by calling on Congress to pass legislation to overhaul policing practices by May 25, the first anniversary of Floyd’s death, effectively putting a timer on lawmakers to come up with a bipartisan bill that can make it through the Senate. That will be a very steep climb for all parties involved. The Hill: Biden calls for Congress to pass gun control bills. “Don’t tell me it can’t be done,” he said. Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), who delivered the GOP’s response to Biden’s speech, remained skeptical that Democrats want to pass any meaningful legislation on the topic, having authored the GOP’s policing bill last year. He is also in the thick of negotiations this go around. “My friends across the aisle seemed to want the issue more than they wanted a solution,” said Scott, who will reportedly meet with lawyer Benjamin Crump and Philonise Floyd, George Floyd’s brother, later today. “But I’m still working. I’m still hopeful.” Biden’s calls for bipartisan legislation also extended to guns and immigration, calling on Republicans specifically in both instances to come together to pass targeted bills on background checks and undocumented immigrants already living and working in the country, who are known as “Dreamers.” The Hill: Tim Scott says Biden dividing country in GOP response to joint address. Biden also touched on LGBTQ issues, specifically telling transgender individuals that he and the White House support them. “I want you to know your president has your back,” Biden said. On the international stage, Biden reiterated warnings to Russian President Vladimir Putin and touted his decision to pull all troops from Afghanistan by September. The Hill: Biden: “The insurrection was an existential crisis.” The speech was delivered before a chamber that was roughly one-eighth the capacity of normal joint sessions or State of the Union addresses, leading to awkward moments throughout the 65-minute speech. At multiple moments, the television audience could hear things happen that would never be heard in a normal address. As The Washington Post’s Paul Kane noted, one lawmaker’s ringtone went off for everyone to hear. One person in the chamber could also be heard sneezing. “Low energy, felt longer than the clock said,” one House Republican present in the chamber said of the event. When told of what could be heard over the broadcast, the lawmaker added that it was no better in person. “Worse in the room,” the lawmaker added. On his way out of the chamber, Biden conversed with a crowd of lawmakers, mostly Democrats, as the new House sergeant at arms tried to usher him out of the chamber. While most Republicans did not hang around, at least three were spotted chatting up the president on the way out: Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), who represents a swing district in Staten Island, and Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R). As it happens, Biden will be in Philadelphia on Friday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Amtrak, the transportation mode he used for decades as a senator from Delaware. Scott Wong and Mike Lillis, The Hill: Biden offers traditional address in eerie setting. The Hill’s Niall Stanage explores his takeaways from Wednesday’s address. The Wall Street Journal has the details from Biden’s $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, and The Washington Post has five broad takeaways. The Associated Press explains possible tax ramifications for wealthy investors. Republicans on Wednesday criticized the president’s proposed American Families Plan hours before the speech, arguing Biden’s announced proposals for health care, child care and community college, among other provisions, represent “socialist spending” that they maintain would cost jobs, hurt small businesses through proposed tax changes and curtail investment as the economy moves out of recession. Democratic lawmakers said they are generally pleased with the proposals described by the president but acknowledged a heavy legislative lift ahead for Congress. But as The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), whose misgivings can sink any major Democratic measure, worries about the price tag of the president’s agenda. The Biden infrastructure plan with its $2.3 trillion price tag faces an uncertain trajectory as a bipartisan group drafts a smaller alternative and Democrats debate whether to break up the sweeping proposal or forge ahead with a single measure, The Hill’s Jordain Carney reports.
The Hill: McConnell accused Biden on Wednesday of breaking his promise to unify the country and govern in a bipartisan way.
The Hill: “It’s about time,” Pelosi said when asked about two powerful women seated behind the president for the first time at an address to a joint session of Congress. The Associated Press: Watching from afar, Congress will make or break the Biden agenda. Bloomberg News: Biden for the first time will host House and Senate GOP and Democratic leaders at the White House on May 12. 
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