President-elect Joe Biden has long pledged he would deliver an aggressive plan to address the raging coronavirus pandemic and the painful recession it spawned.
On Thursday, he did just that, proposing an ambitious $1.9 trillion relief plan that includes $1,400 stimulus checks, additional benefits for the unemployed, as well hundreds of billions of dollars for struggling businesses and local governments.
"The crisis of deep human suffering is in plain sight," Biden said during a televised address, six days before taking office. "There's no time to waste. We have to act and we have to act now."
Biden's plan comes just weeks after Congress passed a $900 billion relief plan that took weeks of painful negotiations. But economists have said the economy would need additional help as new coronavirus infections continue to surge, and as the daily death toll from COVID-19 exceeds 4,000.
The pandemic is dealing fresh blows to the U.S. economy, with more than 1.2 million Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits in the first week of the new year.
The Trump administration invested heavily in developing a vaccine, but has left distribution largely up to states. The number of shots delivered so far has fallen far short of what was promised.
"We'll have to move heaven and earth to get more people vaccinated," Biden said. "To mobilize more medical teams to get shots in people's arms, to increase vaccine supply, and to get it out the door as fast as possible."
Biden called for a $20 billion campaign to speed vaccinations, including the launch of community vaccination centers around the country and mobile units to deliver the shots to hard-to-reach areas.
