Tag: Business

150 business leaders back up Biden’s COVID plan

150 business leaders back up Biden's COVID plan 1

150 execute business leaders from the largest companies across America have lined up behind President Joe Biden to back his $1.9 trillion COVID relief plan. According to a letter obtained by CNN, President Joe Biden shall use the funds for relief packages.

The business leaders are said to represent some of the powerful business interests in America, ranging from bank and investment firms like Blackstone and Goldman Sachs, to Intel, IBM, and Google. Hospitality companies are also on the list such as Loews Hotels & Co. as well as airline companies like United Airlines and American Airlines. Moreover, business leaders from real estate companies, insurance companies, and utility firms also signed on to the letter.

Over the first month in office, President Joe Biden has been so determined to press lawmakers to pass his cornerstone legislative proposal, which includes funding for schools, vaccine distribution and infrastructure, states and localities, direct payments and extensions of expiring unemployment insurance programs.

“Previous federal relief measures have been essential, but more must be done to put the country on a trajectory for a strong, durable recovery,” the executives wrote in the letter addressed to bipartisan congressional leaders that will be sent Wednesday. “Congress should act swiftly and on a bipartisan basis to authorize a stimulus and relief package along the lines of the Biden-Harris administration’s proposed American Rescue Plan.”
The support from Republicans till this point has been non-existent, with even moderate GOP senators being responsive to talks calling President Joe Biden’s proposal too large in scale in scope given the trillions in emergency aid deployed over the first year of the global pandemic.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky attacked the plan as “totally partisan,” and Republicans in the House and Senate appear unified in voting against the proposal, aides in both chambers say.
Biden, however, has been steadfast that his mandate is to “go big,” and in recent days has challenged opponents of his plan to outline specifically what they’d like to strip from the package.
“Now critics say the plan is too big,” Biden said at the White House on Monday. “Let me ask the rhetorical question — what would you have me cut? What would you have me leave out?”
The letter from business leaders serves to bolster Democratic arguments about the size of the package.
“Strengthening the public health response to coronavirus is the first step toward economic restoration,” the executives wrote. “The American Rescue Plan mobilizes a national vaccination program, delivers economic relief to struggling families, and supports communities that were most damaged by the pandemic.”