Historic benefits in stimulus bill may answer a big question for Democrats
CNN
The massive stimulus plan President Joe Biden signed last week sets up a critical real-world test of an argument that has divided political professionals for decades: Can Democrats win back White working-class voters drawn to conservative Republican messages on culture and race by offering them more tangible economic benefits?
Social policy experts say the $1.9 trillion bill will channel more direct government financial assistance to families on the middle and lower rungs of the income ladder than any single piece of legislation since at least President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society during the 1960s -- and possibly well before that. Irwin Garfinkel, one of the nation's leading social policy scholars and co-director of the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, says that in terms of putting a short-term infusion of cash into the pockets of families at or below the median income -- particularly through a historic expansion and reconfiguration of the child tax credit -- the bill's immediate impact compares favorably even to the crowning achievement of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.President Joe Biden warned against a streak of “semi-isolationism” in the US as he stressed the importance of alliances during a symbolic visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery on Sunday, honoring the thousands of Americans who died in World War I at a site former President Donald Trump skipped during a 2018 visit to Paris.
Looking to shore up Latino votes in Nevada and Arizona for his reelection campaign, President Joe Biden is on the verge of soon following up last week’s executive action aimed at curbing border crossings with another move focused on providing legal status for long-term undocumented immigrants married to American citizens and without criminal records.