With Republicans actively obstructing bipartisan legislation to secure the border, President Biden has taken new actions to bar migrants who cross our Southern border unlawfully from receiving asylum, but continues to appeal for Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform – as he has proposed since Day 1 of his administration.
Here are President Biden’s remarks about his Executive Order, and a fact sheet describing the new actions to secure the border, provided by the White House:
I’ve come here today to do what the Republicans in Congress refuse to do: take the necessary steps to secure our border.
Four months ago, after weeks of intense negotiation between my staff and Democrats and Republicans, we came to a clear — clear bipartisan deal that was the strongest border security agreement in decades. But then Republicans in Congress — not all, but — walked away from it.
Why? Because Donald Trump told them to. He told the Republicans — it has been published widely by many of you — that he didn’t want to fix the issue; he wanted to use it to attack me. That’s what he wanted to do. It was a cynical and a – extremely cynical political move and a complete disservice to the American people, who are looking for us to — not to weaponize the border but to fix it.
Today, I am joined by a bipartisan group of governors, members of Congress, mayors, law enforcement officials — most of whom live and work along the southern border. They know the border is not a political issue to be weaponized — the responsibility we have to share to do something about it. They don’t have time for the games played in Washington, and neither do the American people.
So, today, I’m moving past Republican obstruction and using the executive authorities available to me as president to do what I can on my own to address the border.
Frankly, I would have preferred to address this issue through bipartisan legislation, because that’s the only way to actually get the kind of system we have now — that’s broken — fixed, to hire more Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, more judges. But Republicans have left me with no choice.
Today, I’m announcing actions to bar migrants who cross our southern border unlawfully from receiving asylum. Migrants will be restricted from receiving asylum at our southern border unless they seek it after entering through an established lawful process.
And those who seek — come to the United States legally — for example, by making an appointment and coming to a port of entry — asylum will still be available to them — still available. But if an individual chooses not to use our legal pathways, if they choose to come without permission and against the law, they’ll be restricted from receiving asylum and staying in the United States.
This action will help us to gain control of our border, restore order to the process.
This ban will remain in place until the number of people trying to enter illegally is reduced to a level that our system can effectively manage.
We’ll carry out this order consistent with all our responsibilities under international law — every one of them.
In addition to this action, we recently made important reforms in our asylum system: more efficient and more secure reforms. The goal is to deliver decisions on asylum as quickly as possible.
The quicker decision means that a migrant is less likely to pay a criminal smuggler thousands of dollars to take them on a dangerous journey, knowing that if, in fact, they move in the wrong direction, they’d be turned around quickly.
And two weeks ago, the Department of Justice started a new docket in the immigration courts to address cases where people who’ve recently crossed the border and make — they’ll make a decision within six months rather than six years, because that’s what happens now.
Additionally, the Department of Homeland Security has proposed new rules to allow federal law enforcement to more quickly remove asylum seekers that have criminal convictions and remove them from the United States.
My administration also recently launched new efforts to go after criminal networks that profit from smuggling migrants to our border and incentivize people to give tipsto law enforcement to provide information that brings smugglers to justice.
We’re also sending additional federal prosecutors to hot spots along the border and prosecute individuals who break our immigration laws.
One other critical step that we’ll be taking, and that made a huge difference: We continue to work closely with our Mexican neighbors instead of attacking Mexico, and it’s worked.
We built a strong partnership of trust between the Mexican President, López Obrador, and I’m going to do the same with the Mexican-elect President, who I spoke with yesterday.
We’ve chosen to work together with Mexico as an equal partner, and the facts are clear. Due to the arrangements that I’ve reached with President Obrador, the number of migrants coming and shared — to our shared border unlawfully in recent months has dropped dramatically.
But while these steps are important, they’re not enough.
To truly secure the border, we have to change our laws, and Congress needs to provide the necessary funding to hire 1,500 more border security agents; 100 more immigration judges to help tackle the backlog of cases — more than 2 million of them; 4,300 more asylum officers to make decisions in less than six months instead of six years, which is what it takes now; and around 100 more high-tech detection machines to significantly increase the ability to screen and stop fentanyl being smuggled into the United States.
These investments were one of the primary reasons that the Border Patrol union endorsed the bipartisan deal in the first place. And these investments are essential and remain essential.
As far as I’m concerned, if you’re not willing to spend the money to hire more Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, more judges, more high-tech machinery, you’re just not serious about protecting our border. It’s as simple as that.
I believe that immigration has always been a lifeblood of America. We’re constantly renewed by an infusion of people and new talent.
The Statue of Liberty is not some relic of American history. It stands for who we are as the United States.
So, I will never demonize immigrants. I will never refer to immigrants as “poisoning the blood” of a country. And further, I’ll never separate children from their families at the border.
I will not ban people from this country because of their religious beliefs. I will not use the U.S. military to go into neighborhoods all across the country to pull millions of people out of their homes and away from their families to put detention camps while awaiting deportation, as my predecessor says he will do if he occupies this office again.
On my very first day as president, I introduced a comprehensive immigration reform planto fix our broken system, secure our border, provide a pathway for citizenship for DREAMers, and a lot more. And I’m still fighting to get that done.
But we must face a simple truth: To protect America as a land that welcomes immigrants, we must first secure the border and secure it now.
The simple truth is there is a worldwide migrant crisis, and if the United States doesn’t secure our border, there is no limit to the number of people who may try to come here, because there is no better place on the planet than the United States of America.
For those who say the steps I’ve taken are too strict, I say to you that — be patient, and good will of the American people are wearing thin right now. Doing nothing is not an option. We have to act. We must act consistent with both our law and our values — our value as Americans.
I take these steps today not to walk away from who we are as Americans but to make sure we preserve who we are for future generations to come.
Today, I have spoken about what we need to do to secure the border. In the weeks ahead — and I mean the weeks ahead — I will speak to how we can make our immigration system more fair and more just.
Let’s fix the problem and stop fighting about it. I’m doing my part. We’re doing our part. Congressional Republicans should do their part.
Fact Sheet: New Actions to Secure the Border
Since his first day in office, President Biden has called on Congress to secure our border and address our broken immigration system. Over the past three years, while Congress has failed to act, the President has acted to secure our border. His Administration has deployed the most agents and officers ever to address the situation at the Southern border, seized record levels of illicit fentanyl at our ports of entry, and brought together world leaders on a framework to deal with changing migration patterns that are impacting the entire Western Hemisphere.
Earlier this year, the President and his team reached a historic bipartisan agreement with Senate Democrats and Republicans to deliver the most consequential reforms of America’s immigration laws in decades. This agreement would have added critical border and immigration personnel, invested in technology to catch illegal fentanyl, delivered sweeping reforms to the asylum system, and provided emergency authority for the President to shut down the border when the system is overwhelmed. But Republicans in Congress chose to put partisan politics ahead of our national security, twice voting against the toughest and fairest set of reforms in decades.
President Biden believes we must secure our border. That is why today, he announced executive actions to bar migrants who cross our Southern border unlawfully from receiving asylum. These actions will be in effect when high levels of encounters at the Southern Border exceed our ability to deliver timely consequences, as is the case today. They will make it easier for immigration officers to remove those without a lawful basis to remain and reduce the burden on our Border Patrol agents.
But we must be clear: this cannot achieve the same results as Congressional action, and it does not provide the critical personnel and funding needed to further secure our Southern border. Congress still must act.
The Biden-Harris Administration’s executive actions will:
Bar Migrants Who Cross the Southern Border Unlawfully From Receiving Asylum
President Biden issued a proclamation under Immigration and Nationality Act sections 212(f) and 215(a) suspending entry of noncitizens who cross the Southern border into the United States unlawfully. This proclamation is accompanied by an interim final rule from the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security that restricts asylum for those noncitizens.
These actions will be in effect when the Southern border is overwhelmed, and they will make it easier for immigration officers to quickly remove individuals who do not have a legal basis to remain in the United States.
These actions are not permanent. They will be discontinued when the number of migrants who cross the border between ports of entry is low enough for America’s system to safely and effectively manage border operations. These actions also include similar humanitarian exceptions to those included in the bipartisan border agreement announced in the Senate, including those for unaccompanied children and victims of trafficking.
Recent Actions to secure our border and address our broken immigration system:
Strengthening the Asylum Screening Process
The Department of Homeland Security published a proposed rule to ensure that migrants who pose a public safety or national security risk are removed as quickly in the process as possible rather than remaining in prolonged, costly detention prior to removal. This proposed rule will enhance security and deliver more timely consequences for those who do not have a legal basis to remain in the United States.
Announced new actions to more quickly resolve immigration cases
The Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security launched a Recent Arrivals docket to more quickly resolve a portion of immigration cases for migrants who attempt to cross between ports of entry at the Southern border in violation of our immigration laws.
Through this process, the Department of Justice will be able to hear these cases more quickly and the Department of Homeland Security will be able to more quickly remove individuals who do not have a legal basis to remain in the United States and grant protection to those with valid claims.
The bipartisan border agreement would have created and supported an even more efficient framework for issuing final decisions to all asylum seekers. This new process to reform our overwhelmed immigration system can only be created and funded by Congress.
Revoked visas of CEOs and government officials who profit from migrants coming to the U.S. unlawfully
The Department of State imposed visa restrictions on executives of several Colombian transportation companies who profit from smuggling migrants by sea. This action cracks down on companies that help facilitate unlawful entry into the United States, and sends a clear message that no one should profit from the exploitation of vulnerable migrants.
The State Department also imposed visa restrictions on over 250 members of the Nicaraguan government, non-governmental actors, and their immediate family members for their roles in supporting the Ortega-Murillo regime, which is selling transit visas to migrants from within and beyond the Western Hemisphere who ultimately make their way to the Southern border.
Previously, the State Department revoked visas of executives of charter airlines for similar actions.
Expanded Efforts to Dismantle Human Smuggling and Support Immigration Prosecutions
The Departments of State and Justice launched an “Anti-Smuggling Rewards” initiative designed to dismantle the leadership of human smuggling organizations that bring migrants through Central America and across the Southern U.S. border. The initiative will offer financial rewards for information leading to the identification, location, arrest, or conviction of those most responsible for significant human smuggling activities in the region.
The Department of Justice will seek new and increased penalties against human smugglers to properly account for the severity of their criminal conduct and the human misery that it causes.
The Department of Justice is also partnering with the Department of Homeland Security to direct additional prosecutors and support staff to increase immigration-related prosecutions in crucial border U.S. Attorney’s Offices. Efforts include deploying additional DHS Special Assistant United States Attorneys to different U.S. Attorneys’ offices, assigning support staff to critical U.S. Attorneys’ offices, including DOJ Attorneys to serve details in U.S. Attorneys’ Offices in several border districts, and partnering with federal agencies to identify additional resources to target these crimes.
Enhancing Immigration Enforcement
The Department of Homeland Security has surged agents to the Southern border and is referring a record number of people into expedited removal.
The Department of Homeland Security is operating more repatriation flights per week than ever before. Over the past year, DHS has removed or returned more than 750,000 people, more than in every fiscal year since 2010.
Working closely with partners throughout the region, the Biden-Harris Administration is identifying and collaborating on enforcement efforts designed to stop irregular migration before migrants reach our Southern border, expand investment and integration opportunities in the region to support those who may otherwise seek to migrate, and increase lawful pathways for migrants as an alternative to irregular migration.
Seizing Fentanyl at our Border
Border officials have seized more fentanyl at ports of entry in the last two years than the past five years combined, and the President has added 40 drug detection machines across points of entry to disrupt the fentanyl smuggling into the Homeland. The bipartisan border agreement would fund the installation of 100 additional cutting-edge inspection machines to help detect fentanyl at our Southern border ports of entry.
In close partnership with the Government of Mexico, the Department of Justice has extradited Nestor Isidro Perez Salaz, known as “El Nini,” from Mexico to the United States to face prosecution for his role in illicit fentanyl trafficking and human rights abuses. This is one of many examples of joint efforts with Mexico to tackle the fentanyl and synthetic drug epidemic that is killing so many people in our countries and globally, and to hold the drug trafficking organizations to account
In his keynote address at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Day of Remembrance Celebration, President Biden honors the memory of the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust – and makes clear that we must recommit to heeding the lessons of this dark chapter: ‘Never Again.’ The President raises:
The importance of recounting the crimes of the Holocaust and the events that led to it as the world watched with indifference.
The atrocities of October 7th – the deadliest attack committed against the Jewish people since the Holocaust – and how too many people are downplaying both events.
The unacceptable acts of Antisemitism we’re seeing on campuses and across the country.
How all Americans must stand united against Antisemitism and hate in all its forms.
During Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Biden-Harris Administration announced several new actions to counter the abhorrent rise of Antisemitism in the United States. President Biden will speak at the Days of Remembrance commemoration hosted by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, reaffirming our Nation’s sacred commitment to the Jewish people following the Holocaust: Never Again.
This year’s remembrance is particularly sobering, as it comes seven months after the terrorist group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Since that time, there has been an alarming rise of Antisemitic incidents across the country and throughout the world—most recently, in instances of violence and hate during some protests at college campuses across the Nation.
Today’s new actions build on the work of the President’s National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, the first-ever such strategy, which was released one year ago this month. The strategy represents the most comprehensive and ambitious U.S. government effort to counter Antisemitism in American history. It includes over 100 actions the Biden-Harris Administration has taken, and continues to take, to address the rise of Antisemitism in the United States, as well as over 100 calls to action for Congress, state and local governments, companies, technology platforms, students, educators, civil society, faith leaders, and others. It has involved actions by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to provide greater security to Jewish institutions, as well as actions by the Department of Education to address antisemitism and by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to further support education around Jewish history.
The Biden-Harris Administration has taken aggressive action to implement the strategy and to speak out forcefully against hate of all kinds, especially in the wake of the October 7th attacks. Through the National Security Supplemental, President Biden secured an additional $400 million for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which funds security improvements and training to nonprofits and houses of worship, including campus organizations and community centers. This funding has been critical to the security of Jewish institutions. Last week, for example, the Biden-Harris Administration sent a guide to the leadership of more than 5,000 colleges and universities with information on resources to promote campus safety from the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Education.
Today, the Biden-Harris Administration announced additional actions to counter Antisemitism in Year Two of the Strategy, building on its work over the past year:
Today, the Department of Education’s (ED) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued new guidance through a Dear Colleague Letter to every school district and college in the country, providing examples of Antisemitic discrimination, as well as other forms of hate, that could lead to investigations for violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI). This guidance is meant to ensure that colleges and universities do a better job of protecting both Jewish students and all of their students.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will work with interagency partners to build an online campus safety resources guide and landing page to provide the range of financial, educational, and technical assistance to campuses in one, easy-to-use website.
DHS will develop and share best practices for community-based targeted violence and terrorism prevention to reduce these assaults and attacks. Federal agencies will elevate ongoing efforts to address the fear felt in targeted communities and ensure that resources are widely known among communities that need them.
The Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism at the Department of State will convene technology firms to identify best practices to address Antisemitic content online. Departments and agencies will continue to provide technology companies with relevant information about symbols and themes associated with violent extremism online to help them enforce their terms of service.
These new actions build on actions taken to date:
Title VI Enforcement
ED-OCR has opened more than 100 investigations over the past seven months into complaints alleging discrimination based on shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics, including Antisemitism. The previous administration opened 27 such investigations in all four years.
On Friday, Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona sent a letter to more than 5,000 leaders at institutions of higher education across the country to reiterate that federal law protects against Antisemitic discrimination that violates Title VI. He also shared a Campus Safety Resource Guide to serve as a one-stop-shop of federal resources. ED OCR has issued several DearColleague Letters to every school district and college in the country and conducted training and outreach reminding them of their obligation to provide educational environments free from discrimination, as well as the tools available to report discriminatory incidents. OCR maintains a website with more resources on shared ancestry discrimination.
ED OCR updated its complaint form specifying that Title VI’s protection from discrimination, including harassment, based on race, color, or national origin includes discrimination against students based on shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics, including those who are or are perceived to be Jewish, Muslim, Arab, Hindu, or Sikh.
Eight Cabinet-level agencies clarified for the first time in writing that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits certain forms of antisemitic, Islamophobic, and related forms of discrimination in federally funded programs and activities. In addition, these agencies—the Departments of Agriculture (USDA), Health and Human Services (HHS), DHS , Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Interior, Labor (DOL), Treasury, and Transportation (DOT)—have taken a number of steps to raise awareness of Title VI protections and other relevant statutes among Jewish and other communities, including by translating Title VI fact sheets into languages such as Yiddish and Hebrew and creating new Title VI landing pages to serve as a one-stop-shop of resources.
Campus and School Safety
Since October 7th, FBI and DHS have taken steps to expand and deepen engagements with campus law enforcement and others to improve school safety. DHS has engaged with schools to identify security enhancements and raise awareness of SchoolSafety.gov, which offers school safety information and resources. DHS also has shared information via threat briefings and partner calls with the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators. The Federal Emergency Management Agency offers a training course called Crisis Management Affecting Institutions of Higher Education: A Collaborative Community Approach, through which campus members can learn how to effectively manage a crisis using a whole community approach, effective crisis communication, and more.
In the wake of October 7th, DHS’s Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) tasked its field force to proactively engage with schools to understand and address their needs. CISA has further expanded security capacity-building services to synagogues, community centers, and Jewish day schools. These services include risk assessments, planning assistance, and active shooter and bomb prevention-related training. CISA has held sessions on active shooter preparedness; an introduction to bomb threat management; tabletop exercise packages for synagogues; and a training on responding to suspicious behaviors and items. Since June 2023, CISA personnel have conducted over 400 in-person visits with Jewish houses of worship and other institutions. Additional security trainings, information and resources are found here.
USDA has held sessions with university leaders from 80 land-grant universities and rural colleges to share promising practices to address Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of hate.
Under the National Strategy, the Department of Justice (DOJ) launched a pilot curriculum for middle and high school-age youth designed to prevent youth hate crimes and identity-based bullying. In year two of the National Strategy, the curriculum will be rolled out this August, before the school year begins.
Community Safety Resources
DHS broadened access to the Nonprofit Security Grant Program by holding several webinars, expanding its Protecting Places of Worship Week of Action, and leveraging partnerships with DOJ. During the Biden-Harris Administration, this program has made 2,960 grants to Jewish institutions for a total of $397 million in funding to Jewish institutions.
To assist campus public safety and law enforcement identify available federal financial assistance opportunities, DHS published guidance clarifying the eligibility of law enforcement agencies at institutions of higher education to receive both State Homeland Security Program (SHSP) and Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) grant funding.
DHS hosts the Prevention Resource Finder to provide stakeholders the full range of federal resources available to help prepare for and prevent targeted violence and terrorism across our country. Resources on the website include community support resources, grant funding opportunities, information-sharing platforms, evidence-based research, and training opportunities for campuses and communities to reduce the risk of hate-based and targeted violence. Since its launch in March 2023, it has been viewed over 58,000 times.
Through the DHS Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3), DHS is strengthening the country’s ability to prevent targeted violence and terrorism nationwide through funding, training, increased public awareness, and partnerships across government, the private sector, and local communities.
The U.S. Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) conducts training on threat assessments and the prevention of targeted violence. These resources examine attacks against colleges and universities, among other locations.
Hate Crimes Prevention and Response
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) widely disseminated its updated hate crimes threat response guide to inform Americans about steps they can take if they receive a threat. The guide, published on the FBI’s hate crimes resource page, has been shared with organizations and state and local law enforcement entities across the nation. The FBI reviews every tip it receives to ascertain the credibility of the information and, if it learns of a credible threat, quickly takes action. FBI’s campus liaisons enhance information-sharing with campuses.
DOJ has expanded its engagement with Jewish community groups in support of the National Strategy. The FBI has held over 650 engagements with faith-based and community organizations since October 7th. DOJ and the FBI have used robust and diverse outreach to local law enforcement agencies to improve the reporting of hate crime data. DOJ’s United Against Hate community outreach and engagement initiative has held over 300 engagements involving over 10,000 participants to educate community members about hate crimes, build trust between community and law enforcement, and strengthen local networks to combat unlawful acts of hate. DOJ’s Community Relations Service provides mediation, training and consultation services to assist communities come together, develop solutions to conflict and prevent future conflict. DOJ has also developed and released twodocuments that explain civil rights law prohibiting national origin discrimination and religious discrimination and provide information to the public on identifying and reporting national origin and religious discrimination in the civil and criminal context.
Throughout the spring, USDA is providing hate crime trainings, including Antisemitic hate crimes, for law enforcement agents of the U.S. Forest Service. The Department of the Interior (DOI) has distributed new resources on Jewish American heritage through the National Park Service.
Addressing Discrimination and Religious Accommodations
USDA is making kosher food more accessible by working to ensure equal access to all USDA feeding programs for customers with religious dietary needs.
The Department of Defense (DOD) leveraged existing survey data to estimate the prevalence of Antisemitic and Islamophobic behavior in the military workplace and to evaluate its policies to counter discrimination, discriminatory harassment, and extremist activity. This analysis was the first to specifically estimate Antisemitic and Islamophobic activity in the military workplace.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has disseminated materials on nondiscrimination and religious accommodation in the workplace and has held more than 50 outreach and training events on Antisemitism at its field offices around the country.
The HHS Office for Civil Rights issued a Dear Colleague letter and guidance to U.S. hospital and long-term care facility administrators, reminding organizations of their legal obligations under relevant regulations and federal civil rights laws to ensure that facility visitation policies do not unlawfully discriminate against patients or other individuals receiving care, including on the basis of religion. HHS’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Child Traumatic Stress Network has released a toolkit of behavioral health resources pertaining to the Israel-Hamas war, as well as additional resources on how to talk with children and youth about hate crimes and identity-based violence, including Antisemitism.
DOL published a “Know Your Rights” resource for union members regarding their right to be free from discrimination based on religion, national origin, or race in the workplace.
On Thursday, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) will convene state education officials to discuss best practices in Holocaust education, including the incorporation of the history of Antisemitism, and opportunities to expand such education.
The USHMM concluded its first tour of the Americans and the Holocaust traveling exhibitions. Launched in fall 2021, the exhibition visited 41 states, reaching more than 330,000 visitors. Thirty-four college courses have incorporated content from this exhibition. The USHMM and American Library Association will launch a second tour of the exhibition in September 2024 at an additional 50 libraries.
Several federal agencies have incorporated information about Antisemitism, workplace religious accommodations, and related topics into employee training programs as they carry out their obligations under Executive Order 14035 (Executive Order on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce). To support this work, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) surveyed federal agencies about their existing trainings. OPM, EEOC, and the White House Office of Management and Budget have provided learning sessions for agency diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility officers on Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and related forms of discrimination, as well as workplace religious accommodations.
The Biden-Harris Administration announced a first-ever national goal to transition to a zero-emissions freight sector for truck, rail, aviation and marine, along with a commitment to develop a national zero-emissions freight strategy, and announces nearly $1.5 billion in funding to support the transition to zero-emission heavy-duty vehicles. This fact sheet is provided by the White House:
The U.S. freight system is vital to our nation’s economy. Trucks, ships, trains, and planes move 55 million tons of goods worth more than $49 billion every day, across a vast network that is essential to how Americans live and work. But while industry has made progress on reducing emissions from this sector, freight movement continues to represent a significant share of local air pollution, increasing the risk of asthma, heart disease, hospitalization, and other adverse health outcomes for the millions of Americans, especially overburdened communities, who live and work near highways, ports, railyards, warehouses, and other freight routes. The transportation sector is also the largest source of climate pollution in the U.S., with trucks and buses comprising nearly a quarter of emissions from the sector. That’s why President Biden’s Investing in America agenda is supporting solutions that address harmful pollution, and has spurred $165 billion of private sector investments in zero-emission vehicle technologies.
Building on this momentum, the Biden-Harris Administration announced a first-ever national goal to transition to a zero-emissions freight sector for truck, rail, aviation and marine, along with a commitment to develop a national zero-emissions freight strategy. This whole-of-government strategy includes new federal investments announced today, continued engagement with stakeholders on zero-emissions freight infrastructure, and forthcoming action plans on each of the freight segments. The strategy will prioritize actions to address air pollution hot spots and tackle the climate crisis, mobilizing a broad range of government resources, and reflect public participation and meaningful community engagement, furthering the President’s commitment to environmental justice for all. This new commitment to zero-emissions freight aligns with and supports President Biden’s existing goals for a carbon pollution-free energy sector by 2035 and for achieving net-zero emissions from the transportation sector by 2050.It also aligns with the Administration’s commitment to work with other countries to identify pathways and implementation actions that enable zero-emissions medium- and heavy-duty vehicles to reach 30 percent of new sales in 2030 and 100 percent of new sales by 2040.
Investing in Zero-Emissions Freight Sector
The Administration also unveiled several key steps under the strategy, including major new funding programs, a new initiative to track and accelerate deployment of charging and refueling infrastructure, and a new program to standardize heavy-duty vehicle charging depots:
As part of this commitment, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing today a nearly $1 billion funding opportunity for cities, states and Tribes through President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act to replace Class 6 and Class 7 heavy duty vehicles – which include school buses, trash trucks, and delivery trucks – with zero-emissions vehicles. The funding will support infrastructure to charge, fuel and maintain heavy-duty zero emission vehicles along with workforce development and training to get this work done. Under the requirements of the Inflation Reduction Act, at least $400 million of the program’s funding will serve communities dealing with significant air pollution. Projects supported through this program will reduce air and noise pollution, improve public health, and create good-paying clean energy jobs.
The Department of Transportation (DOT) announced the first tranche of its $400 million Reduction of Truck Emissions at Port Facilities Grant Program to improve air quality and reduce pollution for truck drivers, port workers and families that live in communities surrounding ports. The Department of Energy (DOE) is also announcing a $72 million investment to establish a “SuperTruck: Charged” program that will demonstrate how vehicle-grid integration enables depots and truck stops to provide affordable, reliable charging while increasing grid resiliency.
Convening Stakeholders to Accelerate the Transition to Zero-Emissions Freight
The Administration is bringing together stakeholders from commercial truck fleets, ports, vehicle manufacturers, state and local governments, utilities, infrastructure providers, climate and environmental justice organizations for a convening at the White House focused on supercharging the buildout of the infrastructure necessary to make a zero-emissions freight ecosystem a reality in the United States. Today’s convening on zero-emissions freight infrastructure is designed to launch a series of engagements aimed at tackling emissions from the movement of goods across the nation and recognizes the great progress made already by leaders in freight decarbonization. The roundtable will mobilize action towards successfully implementing the National Zero-Emission Freight Corridor Strategy, with special attention paid to infrastructure targets from 2024 to 2027, and will provide Administration officials with insight into the opportunities and challenges facing communities looking to set actionable goals, integrate new planning methodologies, and protect people’s health.
Building on the Administration’s Freight Policies
The announcements build on the Administration’s ongoing work across federal agencies to tackle emissions from America’s freight system.
Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization: In January 2023, DOE, EPA, DOT, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) jointly released the U.S. National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization. Building on this work, the Biden-Haris Administration is coordinating with each of these agencies to draft a series of decarbonization strategies for each segment of the freight system.
Heavy Duty Vehicle Regulations: In December 2022, EPA finalized standards to reduce emissions that form smog and soot from Model Year 2027 and later heavy-duty engines and in March 2024, the agency finalized new greenhouse gas emission standards from heavy-duty vehicles for Model Years 2027-2032. The standards will avoid 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions and provide $13 billion in annualized net benefits to society related to public health, the climate, and savings for truck owners and operators. The final standards will also reduce dangerous air pollution, especially for the 72 million people in the United States who live near truck freight routes, bear the burden of higher levels of pollution, and are more likely to be people of color or come from low-income households.
Advancing Environmental Justice for All
Throughout the process of building a strategy to implement this new goal to transition to a zero-emissions freight ecosystem, the Biden-Harris Administration will provide opportunities for meaningful engagement from relevant stakeholders, including communities with environmental justice concerns, Tribal Nations, state and local governments, manufacturers of heavy-duty vehicles and equipment, fleets and freight operators, and climate and environmental justice organizations. Such engagement will ensure the federal government’s actions to reduce emissions are better targeted, more effective, and reflect the priorities of community groups that have frontline experience with air pollution from the freight sector.
Disparities in ambient air quality have widened over the last decade even as air pollution levels have fallen, and the burden of persistent levels of elevated air pollution remains more heavily borne by communities of color and low-income families. While 120 million Americans live in places with unhealthy air quality, a higher percentage of the exposed population are people of color, who experience nearly eight times higher rates of pediatric asthma and 1.3 times higher risk of dying prematurely from exposure to pollutants. High levels of air pollution are often found in neighborhoods ringed by factories or next to highways, despite most sources meeting emission standards.
President Biden and Vice President Harris believe that every person has a right to breathe clean air and live in a healthy community – now and into the future. That is why, during his first week in office, President Biden signed Executive Order 14008, launching the most ambitious environmental justice agenda in our Nation’s history. To continue delivering on that vision, last year President Biden signed Executive Order 14096 focused on ensuring environmental justice for all people, further embedding environmental justice into the work of federal agencies to achieve real, measurable progress that communities can count on.
As the Biden-Harris Administration leads an all-of-government approach to cut pollution from heavy-duty vehicles, it will build on ongoing work and structure to further advance environmental justice, including:
Commitment to Identifying and Investing in Disadvantaged Communities: Established in his first week in office, the President’s Justice40 Initiative set a goal that 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain federal climate, clean energy, clean transit, and other investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution. To date, 518 programs across 19 federal agencies, including 74 Inflation Reduction Act-funded programs, are being reimagined and transformed to meet the Justice40 goal and ensure the benefits reach the communities that need them most, including cleaner air and accessible public transit. Federal agencies are making this happen with the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, which is used to identify disadvantaged communities that benefit from the Justice40 Initiative.
Environmental Justice Across the Federal Government: Agencies across the Biden-Harris Administration, including DOT, DOE, and EPA, are pursuing a suite of actions that advance environmental justice, including through grants, strategic planning, and collaborative partnerships, and by strengthening public health protections under the Clean Air Act to reduce air pollution from mobile and stationary sources (e.g., revised ambient air quality standards, updated emission standards for passenger cars, commercial trucks and buses).
President Biden announces final rule that will allow eligible DACA recipients to enroll in Affordable Care Act coverage. Some 100,000 DACA recipients are expected to take advantage of this opportunity. This fact sheet is provided by the White House:
The Biden-Harris Administration is expanding access to affordable, quality health care coverage to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. In 2012, President Obama and then Vice President Biden created the DACA policy to transform the lives of eligible Dreamers – young people who came to this country as children—allowing them to live and work lawfully in our country. Over the last decade, DACA has brought stability, possibility, and progress to hundreds of thousands of Dreamers.
While President Biden continues to call on Congress to provide a pathway to citizenship to Dreamers and others, he is committed to protecting and preserving DACA and providing Dreamers with the opportunities and support they need to succeed, including access to affordable, quality health care coverage. Thanks to the Biden-Harris Administration’s actions, today’s final rule will remove the prohibition on DACA recipients’ eligibility for Affordable Care Act coverage for the first time, and is projected to help more than 100,000 young people gain health insurance. Starting in November, DACA recipients can apply for coverage through HealthCare.gov and state-based marketplaces, where they may qualify for financial assistance to help them purchase quality health insurance. Four out of five consumers have found a plan for less than $10 a month, with millions saving an average of about $800 a year on their premiums.
President Biden and Vice President Harris believe that health care should be a right, not a privilege. Together, they promised to protect and strengthen the Affordable Care Act, lowering costs and expanding coverage so that every American has the peace of mind that health insurance brings. Today’s final rule delivers on the President’s commitment by giving DACA recipients that same peace and opportunity.
Today’s rule also reinforces the President’s enduring commitment to DACA recipients and Dreamers, who contribute daily to the strength and vitality of our communities and our country. On day one of his Administration, President Biden committed to preserving and fortifying the DACA policy. While only Congress can provide Dreamers permanent status and a pathway to citizenship, the Biden-Harris Administration has continued to vigorously defend DACA against ongoing legal challenges and strengthened DACA by codifying the 2012 policy in a final rule.
Statement from President Joe Biden:
Today, my Administration is expanding affordable, quality health care coverage to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. Dreamers are our loved ones, our nurses, teachers, and small business owners. And they deserve the promise of health care just like all of us.
Nearly twelve years ago, President Obama and I announced the DACA program to allow our young people to live and work in the only country they’ve called home. Since then, DACA has provided more than 800,000 Dreamers with the ability to work lawfully, pursue an education, and contribute their immense talents to make our communities better and stronger.
I’m proud of the contributions of Dreamers to our country and committed to providing Dreamers the support they need to succeed. That’s why I’ve previously directed the Department of Homeland Security to take all appropriate actions to “preserve and fortify” DACA. And that’s why today we are taking this historic step to ensure that DACA recipients have the same access to health care through the Affordable Care Act as their neighbors.
On Day One of my administration, I sent a comprehensive immigration reform plan to Congress to protect Dreamers and their families. Only Congress can provide Dreamers permanent status and a pathway to citizenship. Congress must act.
Statement from Vice President Kamala Harris:
Dreamers throughout this country are serving in our military, teaching in our classrooms, and leading our small businesses as entrepreneurs. They are our neighbors, classmates, and loved ones. Our nation is fortunate that America is their home.
Thanks to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), more than 800,000 Dreamers have been able to live, study, and work in the only home they have ever known while making our nation a better place. It is why I fought to defend and protect DACA as Attorney General of California and a U.S. Senator from California.
Now as Vice President, I have worked alongside President Biden to take steps to preserve and fortify DACA. Today, we are building on this progress by ensuring DACA recipients also have access to affordable health care, which will improve the health of all communities. This announcement will bring relief to more than 100,000 people and help them thrive while working to achieve their aspirations.
President Biden and I will continue to do everything in our power to protect DACA, but it is only a temporary solution. Congress must act to ensure Dreamers have the permanent protections they deserve.
Contrast to Trump Position on DACA, ACA
In stark contrast to Biden’s support of DACA and ACA, Trump tried to dismantle the DACA program which had protected 700,000 young people who were brought to this country as children from deportation, eventually losing at the Supreme Court.
And Trump tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act – failed – and is vowing to try again if he wins in November. What this would mean for Americans:
More than 100 million Americans with preexisting conditions could be denied coverage or charged more
40 million people’s health insurance coverage at risk
Health care costs would increase for the millions of Americans
Young adults up to age 26 could be kicked off their parent’s health care plan
The glaring contrast between President Joe Biden and the Democrats’ plan to increase equity and opportunity for all Americans and the Republicans, who are doing their best to reverse the progress made, is clear in how Congressional Republicans are refusing to re-authorize the Affordable Connectivity Program. This fact sheet that shows the impact, state-by-state, is provided by the White House:
As part of the President’s Investing in America agenda, a key component of Bidenomics, the Biden-Harris Administration has made historic progress towards lowering costs – including internet costs – for American families across the country. The Affordable Connectivity Program, enacted under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law as the largest internet affordability program in our nation’s history, has helped 23 million households save on their monthly internet bills.
Today, May 1st, begins the final month that Affordable Connectivity Program households will receive any benefit on their internet bills. Without Congressional action to extend funding for the program, millions of Americans will see their internet bills go up or lose internet access at the end of this month. President Biden is once again calling on Republicans in Congress to join their Democratic colleagues in support of extending funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program, so tens of millions of Americans can continue to access this essential benefit.
Losing the monthly Affordable Connectivity Program benefit will have drastic, meaningful impacts on American households, according to survey data collected by the Federal Communications Commission. More than three-quarters of surveyed ACP households say losing their ACP benefit would disrupt their service by making them change their plan or drop internet service entirely. More than two thirds of households had inconsistent internet service or no internet service at all prior to ACP, and this number is even higher for surveyed households residing in rural areas. These respondents also reported that ACP has enabled them to schedule or attend healthcare appoints, apply for jobs, complete work, and do schoolwork.
During the month of May, as funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program runs out, millions of households will receive only a partial subsidy on their internet bills and some will receive no discount at all if their provider opts out of the partial benefit.
At this crucial time, the White House is encouraging providers to take steps to keep their consumers connected by offering low-cost or no-cost plans or providing discounts.
On October 25, 2023, President Biden sent Congress a supplemental request for $6 billion to extend funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program. Despite that request, Republicans in Congress have failed to act. Without action from Republicans in Congress, this program will sunset at the end of May and tens of millions of Americans may no longer be able to afford high-speed internet service. It is time for Republicans in Congress to step up for families across the country.
Here is a state-by-state breakdown of the number of households that will see a $30 or $75 per month increase on their internet bill if Congressional Republicans fail to extend funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program. This breakdown includes estimates of percentages of households enrolled in ACP in every Congressional District.
On Earth Day, President Biden is traveling to Prince William Forest Park in Triangle, VA, a national park system site developed by FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps, to announce $7 billion in awards through EPA’s Solar for All program and unveil major steps to advance the American Climate Corps. This Fact Sheet outlining President Biden’s historic climate actions was provided by the White House :
When President Biden took office, he pledged to restore America’s climate leadership at home and abroad. On his first day in office, the President signed the United States back into the Paris Agreement. And each day since, the Biden-Harris Administration has continued to lead and deliver on the most ambitious climate agenda in history, including securing the largest ever climate investment and unleashing a clean energy manufacturing boom that has attracted hundreds of billions in private sector investment and created over 270,000 new clean energy jobs. The President’s agenda is also advancing environmental justice and ensuring that the benefits of climate investments reach overburdened communities, mobilizing the next generation of clean energy workers through the American Climate Corps, and delivering historic investments in our nation’s climate resilience. At the same time, the Administration is protecting America’s natural wonders, conserving more than 41 million acres of lands and waters.
Building on his climate, clean energy, and environmental justice agenda, President Biden will travel today to Prince William Forest Park in Triangle, Virginia, to celebrate Earth Day 2024, and highlight his Administration’s unprecedented progress in tackling the climate crisis, cutting costs for everyday Americans, and creating good-paying jobs.
Expanding Access to Affordable Solar Energy
The President will announce $7 billion in grants through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Solar for All grant competition, a key component of the Inflation Reduction Act’s $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Selectees under the Solar for All program will serve every state and territory in the nation and deliver residential solar power to over 900,000 households in low-income and disadvantaged communities, saving overburdened households more than $350 million in electricity costs annually – approximately $400 per household – and avoiding more than 30 million metric tons of carbon pollution over the next 25 years.
The selectees will provide funds to states, territories, Tribes, municipalities, and nonprofits across the country to develop long-lasting solar programs that enable low-income and disadvantaged communities to deploy and benefit from distributed residential solar. In total, solar projects funded by this program will create nearly 200,000 jobs. The program also advances the President’s Justice40 Initiative, which set a goal that 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal climate, clean energy, affordable and sustainable housing, and other investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution.
Mobilizing the Next Generation of Climate Leaders through the American Climate Corps
Joined by future members of President Biden’s American Climate Corps, including current AmeriCorps members, President Biden will also announce several new actions to stand up the American Climate Corps – a groundbreaking initiative modeled after FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps that will put more than 20,000 young Americans to work fighting the impacts of climate change today while gaining the skills they need to join the growing clean energy and climate-resilience workforce of tomorrow. The President will announce these actions at Prince William Forest Park, a national park system site developed by FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps and stewarded by the Department of the Interior’s National Park Service.
Nearly a century after FDR established the Civilian Conservation Corps, President Biden will announce today that Americans can now apply to join the American Climate Corps through a newly launched website, ClimateCorps.gov. The website will feature nearly 2,000 positions located across 36 states, DC, and Puerto Rico. These positions are hosted by hundreds of organizations advancing clean energy, conservation, and climate resilience. The website, which is launching in its beta form, will be regularly updated with new American Climate Corps positions. Its goal is to make it easy for any American to find work tackling the climate crisis while gaining the skills necessary for the clean energy and climate resilience workforce of the future. The first class of the American Climate Corps will be deployed to communities across the country in June 2024.
The Biden-Harris Administration is also announcing a new partnership with the North America’s Building Trades Unions’ nonprofit partner TradesFutures. Beginning this summer, every American Climate Corps member will have access to TradesFutures’ industry leading apprenticeship readiness curriculum during their term of service in the American Climate Corps, providing members with the opportunity to be trained in the foundational skills necessary for careers in the clean energy and climate resilience economy and putting them on a pathway to good paying, union jobs.
Many American Climate Corps members will also have access to a streamlined pathway into federal service after a recent update to modernize the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s Pathways Programs. The update will expand applicant eligibility for the Recent Graduates program to include individuals who have completed qualifying career or technical education service within designated American Climate Corps programs.
Today, three states – Vermont, New Mexico, and Illinois – are launching new state-based climate corps programs, building on 10 states that have already launched successful climate corps programs, demonstrating the power of skills-based training as a tool to expand pathways into good-paying jobs. These states will work with the American Climate Corps as implementing partners to ensure young people across the country are serving their communities, while participating in paid opportunities and working on projects to tackle climate change.
Additionally, beginning as a collaboration between the Department of the Interior, the Energy Communities Interagency Working Group, and AmeriCorps VISTA, a new interagency public private partnership – Energy Communities AmeriCorps – will place American Climate Corps members in priority energy communities across the country. The program will help support community-led projects, including environmental remediation, in the places that have powered our nation for generations.
Conserving America’s Lands, Waters, and Wildlife
These announcements come on the heels of a series of major conservation actions by the Biden-Harris Administration. Just last week, the Department of the Interior published a final rule to maximize protections of significant surface resources such as irreplaceable wildlife habitat for caribou and migratory birds on more than 13 million acres in the western Arctic while supporting subsistence uses and needs of Alaska Native communities. This action brings the number of acres of America’s lands and waters conserved under President Biden to 41 million. Additionally, the Interior Department released a final environmental analysis last week recommending denial of a right of way for the Ambler Road project; the proposed road, which would cross more than 200 miles of pristine lands, would have significant impacts on caribou and other subsistence resources upon which more than 60 Alaska Native communities rely.
In addition to these landmark conservation announcements in Alaska, the Interior Department released a rule to help guide the balanced management of all 245 million acres of America’s public lands that are overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. The rule will help to ensure the BLM continues to protect land health while managing other uses of public lands, such as clean energy development and outdoor recreation.
Throughout Earth Week, the Biden-Harris Administration will announce additional actions to build a stronger, healthier future for all: Tuesday will focus on helping ensure clean water for all communities; Wednesday will focus on accelerating America’s clean transportation future; Thursday will focus on steps to cut pollution from the power sector while strengthening America’s electricity grid; and Friday will focus on providing cleaner air and healthier schools for all children.
Biden-Harris Administration’s Top Climate Accomplishments
Deploying Clean, Affordable Electricity and Strengthening America’s Power Grid – President Biden has secured unprecedented investments in a clean power sector, unleashing a boom in American solar, wind, battery storage, and other clean energy technologies that are creating good-paying jobs and saving families money on utility bills. Through the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, U.S. solar generation is projected to increase up to eight-fold and wind generation is projected to triple by 2030. President Biden has jumpstarted the U.S. offshore wind industry, with 10 gigawatts of commercial-scale projects now approved, enough to power nearly four million homes, including two projects that are already delivering power to the grid and others with construction underway. The President’s Investing in America agenda is also supporting transmission buildout and other power grid upgrades, deployment of distributed energy resources in disadvantaged communities, investments in clean electricity across rural America, and American manufacturing of clean energy technologies – all in pursuit of the President’s goal of 100% clean electricity by 2035. Through the President’s Federal Sustainability Plan, the U.S. Government is leading by example and has already signed agreements to provide federal facilities in 18 states with 100% carbon pollution-free electricity by 2030.
And thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, clean energy project developers get access to expanded tax incentives if they pay workers prevailing wages and employ registered apprentices, helping make more clean energy jobs good-paying and union jobs.
Accelerating a Clean Transportation Future – President Biden is taking a whole-of-government approach to position the U.S. as a global leader in innovative and sustainable transportation. The Administration’s National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization is a landmark strategy for cutting all greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. transportation sector by 2050. The President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act invest tens of billions to decarbonize shipping, trucking, transit, rail, and aviation, all while making communities more walkable, bikeable, and connected. And through the President’s Federal Sustainability Plan, the federal government has ordered over 58,000 zero-emission vehicles and has begun installing more than 25,000 charging ports, adding to the 8,000 already in use across the government.
In addition, the President rallied automakers and autoworkers around a historic goal of having electric vehicles (EVs) account for at least 50% of new passenger vehicles sold by 2030. To support this goal while driving down consumer costs, the Administration secured tax credits that reduce the cost of new or used clean vehicles by thousands of dollars directly at the dealership and is investing $7.5 billion into building out a national EV charging network. Since President Biden took office, EV sales have quadrupled, prices have come down by more than 20%, the number of charging stations has grown by over 80% – putting us on track to deploy 500,000 chargers by 2026 – and the U.S. auto industry has added more than 100,000 jobs. Driven by Biden-Harris Administration policies, the sector is experiencing a manufacturing renaissance with more than $160 billion of investments in EVs, batteries, and their supply chains. And just last month, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized the strongest-ever vehicle emission standards for light, medium, and heavy-duty vehicles.
Cutting Energy Costs and Pollution at Homes, Schools, and in Communities – Reducing building emissions through efficiency improvements and electrification lowers energy bills for families, improves resiliency, and creates good-paying jobs. The President has created new programs to save American families on their energy bills through the Department of Energy’s Home Energy Rebates, the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Green and Resilient Retrofit Program, and Treasury’s Home Energy Tax Credits. The Biden-Harris Administration is also strengthening energy efficiency standards to save households and businesses money, with standards updated by DOE for dozens of appliances expected to provide nearly $1 trillion in consumer savings over 30 years, while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2.5 billion metric tons – equivalent to the emissions of 18 million gas-powered cars over 30 years. By invoking emergency authority, the President is expanding domestic heat pump manufacturing, which will cut the costs of heat pumps. To ensure that the 10 million new homes that will be built by 2030 are efficient and resilient, President Biden’s National Initiative to Advance Building Codes is accelerating adoption of modern building codes that protect people from extreme-weather events and help contribute to avoiding an estimated $1.6 billion a year in damages.
Revitalizing American Manufacturing for the Clean Economy – President Biden’s Investing in America agenda has helped catalyze historic manufacturing growth, with factories opening across the nation. To date, the private sector has announced nearly $700 billion in investments in manufacturing and clean energy. The President’s agenda is helping to make U.S. manufacturing the cleanest and most competitive in the world. The Inflation Reduction Act is investing more than $6 billion to slash climate pollution and support worker and community health at U.S. factories producing the steel, aluminum, cement, and other materials that form the backbone of our economy. To further support U.S. industrial competitiveness, the Biden Administration’s landmark Buy Clean initiative is leveraging the government’s sway as the largest purchaser on Earth to spur demand for low-emissions manufacturing and construction products.
Advancing Environmental Justice – Since Day One, the Biden-Harris Administration has prioritized a whole-of-government approach to environmental justice. The President signed a historic Executive Order that calls on the federal government to bring clean energy and healthy environments to all and mitigate harm to those who have suffered from pollution and environmental burdens like climate change. Through the Justice40 Initiative, over 500 programs across 19 federal agencies are being reimagined and transformed to maximize the benefits of President Biden’s unprecedented investments – from clean energy projects to floodwater protections to wastewater infrastructure – to communities that need them most. At the same time, the Administration is taking unprecedented action to protect communities from PFAS pollution, accelerate Superfund and brownfield cleanups, tighten standards for hazardous air pollutants, and enhance air quality enforcement.
Delivering Clean Water and Replacing Lead Pipes – President Biden and Vice President Harris are fighting to ensure a future where every American has access to clean, safe water. The President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invests over $50 billion in upgrading the nation’s water infrastructure – the largest investment in clean water in American history. This funding is going towards expanding access to clean drinking water, replacing lead pipes, improving wastewater and sanitation infrastructure, and removing PFAS pollution in water. President Biden has also made a historic commitment to replace every toxic lead pipe in the country within a decade, protecting families from lead poisoning that can irreversibly harm brain development in children. Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency issued proposed improvements to the Lead and Copper Rule that would require water systems to rapidly replace lead service lines.
Conserving our Lands and Waters –The Biden-Harris Administration has taken historic action to conserve and restore America’s lands and waters, including signing an Executive Order to set the first-ever national conservation goal to conserve at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030 through the America the Beautiful Initiative. Last week the Administration launched Conservation.gov and the American Conservation and Stewardship Atlas, a new website and data portal that will help connect people with information, tools, resources, and opportunities to support land and water conservation projects in communities across the country. The Administration has already protected more than 41 million acres of lands and waters, and President Biden is on track to conserve more lands and waters than any President in history. This includes establishing five new national monuments and restoring protections for three more; creating four new national wildlife refuges and expanding five more; protecting the Boundary Waters of Minnesota, the nation’s most visited wilderness area; safeguarding Bristol Bay in southwest Alaska; and withdrawing Chaco Canyon in New Mexico and Thompson Divide in Colorado from further oil and gas leasing to protect thousands of sacred sites and pristine lands.
To conserve and steward old growth forests, USDA announced a proposal to amend 128 forest land management plans to conserve and steward old-growth forest conditions on national forests and grasslands nationwide. This builds upon the Biden-Harris Administration’s protection of Tongass National Forest, the largest intact temperate rainforest in the world. The Administration is also taking continued action to protect and conserve our nation’s rivers and watersheds for the people and communities that depend on them, protecting the stability and sustainability of the Colorado River Basin in the face of an ongoing megadrought, and beyond. This includes taking historic action to restore healthy and abundant wild salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River Basin, part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s unprecedented commitment to honor the United States’ obligations to Tribal Nations.
Investing in Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry – President Biden’s Investing in America agenda is supporting America’s farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners, who play a critical role in addressing the climate crisis through the deployment of climate-smart practices and systems. Under the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA has supported 80,000 farms in implementing climate-smart practices on over 75 million acres. In Fiscal Year 2023, USDA made record investments in private lands conservation, totaling nearly $3 billion in financial assistance to producers. Leveraging both climate impact and economic opportunities, the Administration is creating new market opportunities through the groundbreaking Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities and efforts that are part of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Grand Challenge.
Rallying Leaders of the World’s Largest Economies to Raise Global Climate Ambition –President Biden has restored America’s climate leadership at home and abroad. Under his leadership, the Administration is securing commitments from more than 155 countries to reduce methane emissions by at least 30 percent by 2030; successfully galvanizing other countries at COP28 to commit, for the first time, to transition away from unabated fossil fuels, stop building new unabated coal capacity globally, and triple renewable energy globally by 2030 and nuclear energy by 2050; launching a new Clean Energy Supply Chain Collaborative to work with international partners to diversify supply chains that are critical to a clean and secure energy transition; mobilizing other governments to follow the U.S. lead and commit to achieve net-zero government emissions by 2050 through a new Net-Zero Government Initiative; and becoming a world leader in innovative debt-for-nature swaps that have helped countries restructure over $2 billion in debt and unlock hundreds of millions of new financing for nature and climate.
This fact sheet on the progress the Biden-Harris Administration has made on the President’s Care Agenda during this proclaimed Month of Action on Care and the comparison to the Republican agenda is from the White House:
During Care Workers Recognition Month, the Biden-Harris Administration is marking the progress we have made to make care more affordable for American families, support family caregivers, boost compensation and job quality for care workers, and expand care options. President Biden was joined by care workers and unions as he laid out how he is building on that progress with transformational investments in child care, home care, paid family and medical leave, tax cuts for workers and families, and other priorities, which are fully paid for by making the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share in taxes. That is in sharp contrast with congressional Republicans, who would make devastating cuts to funding for care, healthcare, Social Security, and Medicare to pay for massive tax cuts for billionaires and big corporations.
The Need to Improve Care
Too many families and individuals struggle to access the affordable, high-quality care they need. The cost of child care is up 26% in the last decade and more than 200% over the past 30 years. For older adults and people with disabilities, long-term care costs are up 40% over the past decade. As a result, the cost of care is out of reach for many Americans. At the same time, care workers—who are disproportionately women of color—struggle to make ends meet, even as they care for others. Due to the low pay and the demanding nature of care work, turnover rates are high. In addition, at least 53 million Americans serve as family caregivers—including over 5 million caring for service members or veterans—and many face challenges due to the lack of support, training, and respite.
The President’s Plan to Lower Costs for Families for Care
The President has made child care, long-term care, family caregiving, and paid leave a core part of his domestic and economic agendas. He has referenced these issues in each of his State of the Union Addresses, and proposed transformative investments in each budget. The President’s most recent budget proposes the following:
Affordable, High-Quality Child Care and Universal Preschool
High-quality early childhood education improves the lives of both children and their parents. The President’s child care plan provides a lifeline to the parents of more than 16 million children by guaranteeing affordable, high-quality child care from birth until kindergarten for low- and middle-income working families. Right now, the average price of child care is nearly $11,000 a year, with low-income families paying as much as a third of their income for child care. Under the President’s plan, most families would pay $10 per day, saving the average family over $600 per child, per month. The budget also invests in free, voluntary, universal preschool for all of the nation’s 4-year-olds and charts a path to expand preschool to 3-year-olds. Together, these investments will make early care and education programs affordable and available where families live and work in communities across the country, increase wages for early childhood education workers, and strengthen the economy.
Child Tax Credit
The President’s Budget would restore the expanded Child Tax Credit, lifting 3 million children out of poverty and cutting taxes by an average of $2,600 for 39 million low- and middle-income families that include 66 million children. This includes 18 million children in low-income families who would be newly eligible for the full credit, and 2 million children living with a caregiver who is at least 60 years old. It would also provide breathing room for day-to-day expenses by allowing families to receive their tax credit through monthly payments.
Long-term Care and Family Caregiving
The President is committed to protecting older adults’ and people with disabilities’ health and dignity. His plan would invest in expanding Medicaid home and community-based services to help a larger number of older adults and people with disabilities receive care in their home or community, and promote better opportunities for home care workers and family caregivers. There has been substantial growth amongst the younger population under 65 with disabilities living in nursing homes. The percentage of individuals younger than 65 living in residential nursing facilities grew from 10.6 in 2000 to 16.2 in 2017. The President’s investments will help ensure that they can receive care in their own homes and communities. The President has also proposed substantial investments for family caregivers serving our nation’s heroes, including stipends and support services for family caregivers of eligible veterans.
A National Paid Family and Medical Leave Program
Many workers with caregiving responsibilities are forced to leave the workforce intermittently or permanently to take care of their loved ones. As of March 2022, only 24% of private sector workers in the United States had access to paid family leave through their employer and only 43% had access to short-term disability insurance through their employer. The President proposes a national, comprehensive paid family and medical leave program, administered by the Social Security Administration (SSA) to ensure that all workers can take time off to care for and bond with a new child; care for a seriously ill loved one; heal from their own serious illness; address circumstances arising from a loved one’s military deployment; or find safety from domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking; or grieve the death of a loved one. The vast majority of America’s workers do not have access to employer-provided paid family leave, including 73 percent of private sector workers. Among the lowest-paid workers, who are disproportionately women and workers of color, 94 percent lack access to paid family leave through their employers. Some people’s caregiving responsibilities are so demanding that under the current system they have to give up paid work entirely or retire early to take care of their loved ones.
The Biden-Harris Administration’s Historic Actions on Care
Since day one of the Administration, President Biden and Vice President Harris have been committed to improving the quality of and access to care while supporting care workers and family caregivers. The President’s American Rescue Plan (ARP) provided an historic $39 billion in child care relief funds to provide relief for child care providers and support for families to afford care. The ARP delivered $37 billion across all 50 states for activities and investments that enhance, expand, and strengthen home and community-based services and $145 million to help the National Family Caregiver Support Program deliver counseling, training, and short-term relief to family and other informal care providers. Moreover, over the past three years, the President has secured close to a 50% increase in federal child care assistance and a $1.5 billion increase in funding for Head Start. And in April 2023, President Biden signed an Executive Order on Increasing Access to High-Quality Care and Supporting Caregivers (Care EO) surrounded by people with disabilities, family caregivers, long-term care workers, early educators, veterans, and aging advocates. The EO was celebrated by leaders from across the country. Over the past year, agencies have made substantial progress implementing the Care EO. For example:
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Administration for Children & Families (ACF), finalized a rule that will reduce the cost of child care for more than 100,000 low-income working families and make sure that more than 140,000 child care providers are paid more fairly and on-time. It also proposed a rule that would boost Head Start teacher wages by $10,000, on average.
For child care providers serving families benefiting from federal child care assistance, HHS, through ACF, adopted a pay floor that will increase child care payments for nearly 47,000 center- and home-based child care providers.
HHS, through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, proposed rules to ensure that home care workers get a bigger share of Medicaid payments; and establish minimum staffing standards in nursing homes receiving Medicare and Medicaid funding.
The Department of Defense reduced the amounts that lower-earning Service members pay out of pocket for child care, lowering child care costs for the families of more than 32,000 children aged 0-12 enrolled in installation Child Development Programs. Military Families earning $45,000 would see a 34% decrease in the amount they pay for child care. This also builds on the President’s Executive Order to advance the economic security of military spouses, veterans, caregivers and survivors.
The Department of Veterans Affairs launched a pilot program, known as the Virtual Psychotherapy Program for Caregivers, to provide mental health counseling services to family caregivers caring for our nation’s heroes. The program successfully completed its pilot phase and is now a permanent program. Since October 2023, the program has provided over 4,937 psychotherapy sessions to family caregivers.
In addition to these actions, federal agencies have taken dozens of others over the past year to improve family caregiving, long-term care, and child care. A full list can be found here.
Republican Officials Want to Provide Massive Taxes to the Rich while Making Devastating Cuts to Programs Working Families Count On
President Biden is building our economy from the middle out and bottom up—an economy where we invest in all Americans to make sure the middle class has a fair shot and no one gets left behind.
House Republicans have a very different economic vision. Under the RSC budget, care would be on the cutting block. Their budget proposal translates to 264,600 fewer child care slots and 253,500 fewer high-quality Head Start slots. These investments are critical to giving children a strong start and making sure that families have the help they need to thrive.
Along with damaging cuts to care funding, House Republicans would slash Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and other supports that working families count on. House Republicans would make these devastating cuts to pay for another $5.5 trillion in tax cuts skewed to the wealthy and big corporations. Their budget would deliver windfall tax cuts to billionaires and their heirs, eliminate the minimum tax on billion-dollar corporations President Biden signed into law, make it easier for the wealthy and corporations to cheat on their taxes, and preserve policies that encourage corporations to move jobs and profits offshore—all while making it more difficult for families to afford child care and education.
Budget Details Vision to Protect Progress, Lower Costs, Protect and Strengthen Social Security and Medicare, Invest in America and the American People, and Reduce the Deficit
From Day One of this Administration, President Biden has tackled challenges head-on while delivering long-lasting results. Over the past three years, he has overseen a strong economic recovery, amassed one of the most successful legislative records in generations, grown the economy from the middle out and bottom up, and delivered important progress for the American people.
Since the President and Vice President took office, the economy has added about 15 million jobs, the unemployment rate has remained below 4 percent for two years in a row—a more than 50-year record—while inflation has fallen by two-thirds. Our strong labor market has meant higher paychecks for working Americans, with inflation-adjusted wages and wealth higher now than before the pandemic. The President’s top economic priority remains lowering costs for hardworking Americans. Under his leadership, the Administration is working to bring down prescription drug costs, health insurance premiums, utility bills, and costs for everyday goods and services—all while taking on junk fees that some banks, airlines, and other big corporations use to rip off Americans. At the same time, he has also restored U.S. leadership on the world stage while keeping Americans safe and promoting democracy at home and abroad.
The President has delivered this progress while fulfilling his commitment to fiscal responsibility. The deficit is over $1 trillion lower than when President Biden took office, thanks in large part to the strength of our economic recovery. In addition, the President has also enacted another roughly $1 trillion in savings over the next decade through the Fiscal Responsibility Act, and through Inflation Reduction Act provisions that empower Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices, cap insulin at $35 per month for seniors, and make our tax system fairer by making billion-dollar corporations pay a minimum tax and enabling the IRS to crack down on wealthy and corporate tax cheats.
The Budget details the President’s vision to protect and build on his Administration’s progress by continuing to lower costs for working families, protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare, invest in America and the American people to make sure the middle class has a fair shot and we leave no one behind, and reduce the deficit by cracking down on fraud, cutting wasteful spending, and making the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share. Building on the President’s record of fiscal responsibility, his Budget reduces the deficit by $3 trillion over the next 10 years—on top of paying for new investments.
The President’s vision of progress, possibilities, and resilience is in stark contrast to Congressional Republicans, who have repeatedly fought to slash critical programs the American people count on and increase the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars, including by attempting to repeal the parts of the Inflation Reduction Act that take on special interests like Big Pharma, big corporations, and wealthy tax cheats. The President’s Budget:
Lowers Costs for the American People
The President has made lowering costs for hardworking families his top domestic priority. Under his leadership we have seen significant progress bringing down inflation. Inflation is down by more than two-thirds, and costs have fallen for key household purchases from a gallon of gas to a gallon of milk. While Congressional Republicans have consistently taken actions that would raise costs for working families, the President’s Budget would continue lowering costs for families.
Lowers Drug Prices and Expands Access to Prescription Drugs. Thanks to action taken by the Administration, millions of seniors and people with disabilities are saving money on their drug costs, and the Administration announced the first ten drugs for which prices will be negotiated as it continues implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act. The Budget builds on this success by significantly increasing the pace of negotiation, bringing more drugs into negotiation sooner after they launch, expanding the Inflation Reduction Act’s inflation rebates and $2,000 out-of-pocket prescription drug cost cap beyond Medicare and into the commercial market, and other steps to build on the Inflation Reduction Act drug provisions. In addition, the Budget extends the $35 cost-sharing cap for a month’s supply of insulin to the commercial market. The Budget also includes proposals to ensure Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) are prudent purchasers of prescription drugs and limits Medicare Part D cost-sharing for high-value generic drugs, such as those used to treat hypertension and hyperlipidemia, to no more than $2 per month for Medicare beneficiaries. These reforms will not only cut costs for the Federal government by $200 billion; they will also save billions of dollars for seniors.
Cuts Taxes for Families with Children and American Workers. President Biden’s tax cuts cut child poverty in half in 2021 and are saving millions of people an average of about $800 per year in health insurance premiums today. Going forward, in addition to honoring his pledge not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000 annually, President Biden’s tax plan would cut taxes for middle- and low-income Americans by $765 billion over 10 years. The Budget restores the full Child Tax Credit enacted in the American Rescue Plan, which helped cut child poverty nearly in half in 2021 to its lowest level in history and narrowed racial disparities in access to the credit. The President’s Budget would restore the expanded Child Tax Credit, lifting 3 million children out of poverty and cutting taxes by an average of $2,600 for 39 million low- and middle-income families that include 66 million children. This includes 18 million children in low-income families who would be newly eligible for the full credit, and 2 million children living with a caregiver who is at least 60 years old. It would also provide breathing room for day-to-day expenses by allowing families to receive their tax credit through monthly payments. And by strengthening the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-paid workers who aren’t raising a child in their home, the President’s Budget would cut taxes by an average of $800 for 19 million working individuals or couples. That includes 2 million older workers age 65 and older and 5 million young adults age 18 to 24 who would be newly eligible for the credit.
Lowers Child Care Costs for Hard-Working Families. The President is committed to providing relief to hard-working families. His Budget creates a historic new program under which working families with incomes up to $200,000 per year would be guaranteed affordable, high-quality child care from birth until kindergarten, with most families paying no more than $10 a day, and the lowest income families paying nothing—providing a lifeline to the parents of more than 16 million children. The Budget also includes $8.5 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) which will help states expand child care assistance to serve over 2 million low-income children.
Increases Affordable Housing Supply to Reduce Housing Costs. The President believes that all Americans should be able to afford a quality home, which is why the Budget includes a historic investment of more than $258 billion that would build or preserve over 2 million units. The Budget builds on previous investments and actions by this Administration to boost housing supply and lower housing costs, particularly for lower- and middle-income households. The Budget expands the existing Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and proposes a new Neighborhood Homes Tax Credit. To further address the critical shortage of affordable housing in communities throughout the Nation, the Budget provides $20 billion in mandatory funding for a new Innovation Fund for Housing Expansion. The Budget invests $1.3 billion in the HOME Investment Partnerships Program (HOME) to construct and rehabilitate affordable rental housing and provide homeownership opportunities. The Budget also provides $7.5 billion in mandatory funding for new Project-Based Rental Assistance contracts to incentivize the development of new climate-resilient affordable housing. Together these proposals would expand the supply of safe and affordable housing, bring new units to market, and ultimately help curb cost growth across the broader rental market.
Expands Access to Homeownership and Affordable Rent and Reduces Down Payments for First-Time and First-Generation Homebuyers. The Budget proposes a new Mortgage Relief Credit to help increase access to affordable housing. The proposal includes a new tax credit for middle-class first-time homebuyers of up to $10,000 over two years to ease affordability challenges. In addition, to unlock starter home inventory and allow middle-class families to move up the housing ladder and empty nesters to right size, the President is calling on Congress to provide a one-year tax credit of up to $10,000 to middle-class families who sell their starter home. The Budget also provides $10 billion in mandatory funding for a new First-Generation Down Payment Assistance program to address homeownership and wealth gaps. For renters, the Budget proposes $32.8 billion in discretionary funding for the Housing Choice Voucher Program to maintain and protect critical services for all currently assisted families and support an additional 20,000 households. The Budget also provides $9 billion to establish a housing voucher program for all 20,000 youth aging out of foster care annually, and provides $13 billion to incrementally expand rental assistance for 400,000 extremely low-income veteran families, paving a path to guaranteed assistance for all who have served the Nation and are in need.
Reduces the Cost of College and Lifts the Burden of Student Debt. From Day One of his Administration, President Biden vowed to fix the student loan system and make sure higher education is a pathway to the middle class—not a barrier to opportunity. Already, the President has cancelled more student debt than any President in history, approving debt cancellation for nearly 4 million borrowers through more than two dozen executive actions. The Budget includes a $12 billion mandatory Reducing the Costs of College Fund that will fund strategies to lower college costs for students, including a new Classroom to Career Fund that will enable students to more affordably obtain postsecondary degrees by increasing access to career-connected dual enrollment opportunities. The Budget also builds on the President’s historic actions to reduce student debt and the cost of college by eliminating the origination fees charged to borrowers on every new federal student loan, which costs families billions. In addition, to help low- and middle-income students overcome financial barriers to postsecondary education, the Budget proposes to increase the discretionary maximum Pell Grant by $100 and thereby expand the reach of the program to help over 7.2 million students attend a public or non-profit college. The Budget builds on successful bipartisan efforts to increase the maximum Pell Grant award by $900 over the past two years—the largest increase in more than 10 years. The Budget also expands free community college through a Federal-State partnership and provides two years of subsidized tuition for students from families earning less than $125,000 enrolled in a four-year Historically Black College and University (HBCU), Tribally Controlled College and University (TCCU), or Minority-Serving Institution (MSI).
Lowers Health Care Costs. The President believes that healthcare is a right, not a privilege. With enrollment in Marketplace coverage at an all-time high, the Budget builds on the incredible success of the Affordable Care Act by making permanent the expanded premium tax credits that the Inflation Reduction Act extended, and providing Medicaid-like coverage to individuals in States that have not adopted Medicaid expansion, paired with financial incentives to ensure States maintain their existing expansions. For Medicaid and CHIP, the Budget allows States to extend the existing 12-month continuous eligibility for all children to 36 months, and allows States to provide continuous eligibility for children from birth until they turn age 6. Further, the Budget prohibits enrollment fees and premiums in CHIP.
Reduces Home Energy and Water Costs. The Budget provides $4.1 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), helping families access home energy and weatherization assistance—vital tools for protecting families from extreme weather and climate change. In addition, the Budget proposes to allow States the option to use a portion of their LIHEAP funds to provide water bill assistance to low-income households.
Protects and Strengthens Social Security and Medicare
Social Security and Medicare are more than government programs, they’re a promise—a rock-solid guarantee that generations of Americans have counted on—that after a life of hard work, you will be able to retire with dignity and security. As the President has made clear, he will reject any efforts to cut or undermine the Medicare or Social Security benefits that seniors and people with disabilities have earned and paid into their entire working lives. The Budget honors that ironclad commitment by firmly opposing benefit cuts to either program and by embracing reforms that would protect and strengthen these programs. The President remains committed to working with the Congress to protect and strengthen Medicare and Social Security for this and future generations and strongly rejects Congressional Republicans’ attempts to cut benefits for hardworking Americans.
Protects and Strengthens Medicare. The Budget strengthens Medicare by extending the solvency of the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund indefinitely by modestly increasing the Medicare tax rate on incomes above $400,000, closing loopholes in existing Medicare taxes, and directing revenue from the Net Investment Income Tax into the HI trust fund as was originally intended. The Budget closes the loophole that allows certain business owners to avoid paying Medicare taxes on these profits and raises Medicare tax rates on earned and unearned income from 3.8 percent to 5 percent for those with incomes over $400,000. In addition, the Budget directs an amount equivalent to the savings from the proposed Medicare drug reforms into the HI trust fund.
Protects the Social Security Benefits that Americans Have Earned. The Administration is committed to protecting and strengthening Social Security. In particular, the Administration looks forward to working with Congress to responsibly strengthen Social Security in a way that ensures no benefit cuts; extends solvency by asking the highest-income Americans to pay their fair share; and improves financial security for seniors and people with disabilities, especially those who face the greatest challenges making ends meet.
Ensures That Americans Can Access the Benefits They’ve Earned. The Budget also invests in staff, information technology, and other improvements at the Social Security Administration (SSA), which will improve customer service at SSA’s field offices, State disability determination services, and teleservice centers for retirees, individuals with disabilities, and their families.
Cuts the Deficit by Promoting Tax Fairness
The President has demonstrated that we can invest in America while achieving meaningful deficit reduction. The deficit is over $1 trillion lower than when President Biden took office, and the President has enacted roughly $1 trillion in additional deficit reduction, including through provisions that empower Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices, cap insulin at $35 per month for seniors and people with disabilities, and establish a minimum tax for large corporations. The Administration looks forward to building on this progress with responsible investments that continue to grow America’s economy from the middle out and bottom up while improving the long-term budget outlook. The Budget proposes another roughly $3 trillion in savings over the next 10 years by making the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share and closing tax loopholes and cutting wasteful spending on Big Pharma, Big Oil, corporate jets and other special interests, and cracking down on wealthy tax cheats. The President’s proposals to reduce the deficit are in sharp contrast to Congressional Republicans plans for tax giveaways skewed to wealthy and big corporations.
Requires Billionaires to Pay at Least 25 Percent of Income in Taxes. Billionaires make their money in ways that are often taxed at lower rates than ordinary wage income, or sometimes not taxed at all, thanks to giant loopholes and tax preferences that disproportionately benefit the wealthiest taxpayers. As a result, many of these wealthy Americans are able to pay an average income tax rate of just 8 percent on their full incomes—a lower rate than many firefighters or teachers. To finally address this glaring inequity, the President’s Budget includes a 25 percent minimum tax on the wealthiest 0.01 percent, those with wealth of more than $100 million.
Raises Tax Rates for Large Corporations. Corporations received an enormous tax break in 2017. While their profits soared, their investment in their workers and the economy did not. Their shareholders and top executives reaped the benefits, without the promised trickle down to workers, consumers, or communities. The President’s Budget would set the corporate tax rate at 28 percent, still well below the 35 percent rate that prevailed prior to the 2017 tax law. In addition, the Budget would raise the Inflation Reduction Act’s corporate minimum tax rate on billion-dollar corporations that the President signed into law from 15 percent to 21 percent, ensuring the biggest corporations pay more of their fair share. These policies are complemented by other proposals to incentivize job creation and investment in the United States to help ensure broadly shared prosperity.
Cracks Down on Tax Avoidance by Large Multinationals and Big Pharma. For decades, countries have competed for multinational business by slashing tax rates, at the expense of having adequate revenues to finance core services. Thanks in part to the Administration’s leadership, more than 130 nations signed on to a global tax framework to finally address this race to the bottom in 2021. Many of our international partners, including many of the world’s largest economies, have implemented or will soon implement this transformational agreement. The President’s Budget proposes to do the same by reforming the international tax system to reduce the incentives to book profits in low-tax jurisdictions, stopping corporate inversions to tax havens, and raising the tax rate on U.S. multinationals’ foreign earnings from 10.5 percent to 21 percent. These reforms would ensure that profitable multinational corporations, including Big Pharma pay their fair share.
Denies Corporations Deductions for All Compensation Over $1 Million Per Employee. Executive pay has skyrocketed in recent decades, with CEO pay averaging more than 300 times that of a typical worker in 2022. The 2017 tax law’s corporate tax cuts only made this problem worse, producing massive boosts to executive compensation while doing nothing for low- and middle-income workers. While corporations can choose to give huge pay packages to their executives, President Biden believes that they don’t deserve a tax break when they do. His Budget proposes new policy to deny deductions for all compensation over $1 million paid to any employee of a C corporation, which would discourage companies from giving their executives massive pay packages and help level the playing field across C corporations.
Ends Capital Income Tax Breaks and Other Loopholes for the Very Wealthy. The President’s Budget will end one of the most unfair aspects of our tax system—the fact that the tax rate the wealthy pay on capital gains and dividends is less than the tax rate that many middle-class families pay on their wages. Households making over $1 million—the top 0.3 percent of all households—will pay the same 39.6 percent marginal rate on their income just like a high-paid worker pays on their wages. Moreover, the Budget eliminates the loophole that allows the wealthiest Americans to entirely escape paying taxes on their wealth by passing it down to heirs.
Ensures That the IRS Can Continue to Collect Taxes Owed by Wealthy Tax Cheats. The Inflation Reduction Act addressed long-standing IRS funding deficiencies by providing stable, multi-year funding to improve tax compliance by finally cracking down on high-income individuals and corporations who too often avoided paying their lawfully owed taxes, and to improve service for the millions of Americans that do pay their taxes. Already, the IRS is using these resources to crack down on tax evasion by the wealthy and big businesses. It has collected more than $500 million in unpaid taxes from fewer than 2,000 delinquent millionaires, is recouping taxes from thousands of millionaires who did not fulfill their basic civic duty by filing a tax return, and is cracking down on high-end tax evasion like deducting personal use of corporate jets as a business expense. At the same time, the IRS is improving customer service and modernizing IT infrastructure. The President’s Budget would restore the full Inflation Reduction Act investment and provide new funding over the long-term to continue cutting the deficit by making sure that wealthy Americans and big corporations pay the taxes they owe through tax compliance initiatives and to continue improving service for taxpayers who are just trying to pay what they owe.
Invests in America and the American People
Expands and Protects Access to Health Care
Supports Family Planning Services, Maternal Health, and Health Equity. Americans deserve access to the healthcare they need, including maternal healthcare, contraception, and family planning services, which are essential to ensuring control over personal decisions about their own health, lives, and families. The Budget includes $390 million for the Title X Family Planning program to increase the number of patients served to 3.6 million. The Budget also builds on a nearly 200 percent funding increase for key programs that address maternal mortality over the course of the Administration, including $376 million to support the ongoing implementation of the White House Blueprint for Addressing the Maternal Health Crisis to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity rates, and address the highest rates of perinatal health disparities.
Saves Lives by Advancing Behavioral Healthcare. In 2022, almost a quarter of adults had a mental illness, 13 percent of adolescents had serious thoughts of suicide, and overdose deaths continued near record highs. As a core pillar of his Unity Agenda, the President released a national strategy to transform how we understand and address mental health in America—and the Budget makes progress on this agenda by improving access to care for individuals and communities. The Budget requires all health plans to cover mental health and substance use disorder benefits, ensures that plans have an adequate network of behavioral health providers, and improves the Department of Labor’s (DOL) ability to enforce the law. The Budget builds on historic investments to improve access to mental health services, and makes significant investments in expanding the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline that is projected to respond to 7.5 million contacts from individuals in distress in 2025 alone and expands mental health care and support services in schools. Additionally, the Administration has made historic advances in expanding access to treatment for opioid use disorder, including signing into law a bipartisan provision to expand the number of medical providers who can initiate treatment for opioid use disorder from 129,000 to nearly 2 million. The Budget increases funding for the State Opioid Response grant program, which has provided treatment services to over 1.2 million people and enabled States to reverse more than 500,000 overdoses with over 9 million purchased overdose reversal medication kits.
Drives Healthcare Innovation to Discover New Treatments and Improve Health Outcomes. Investing in health care innovation and new treatments is a direct investment in the American people. The President’s Budget advances progress toward Biden Cancer Moonshot Goals and the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research, enhances biodefense and public health infrastructure, and directly invests in treatment and prevention of infectious diseases. The Budget makes significant investments to work toward the President and First Lady’s signature Cancer Moonshot goals of reducing the cancer death rate by at least 50 percent over 25 years and improving the experience of people and families who are living with or who have survived cancer. The President and the First Lady launched the first-ever White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research, recognizing that women have been understudied and underrepresented in health research for far too long. The Administration proposes to transform the way the government funds women’s health research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), including by increasing interdisciplinary research at NIH and creating a new nationwide network of centers of excellence and innovation in women’s health—and the Budget would double existing funding for the Office of Research on Women’s Health at NIH, to improve women’s health outcomes. Additionally, over the past three years, substantial progress has been made toward developing and implementing transformational capabilities to increase the Nation’s ability to respond to and prepare for emerging health threats. Building upon this progress, the Budget invests $9.8 billion to bolster public health capacity that will enable the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to better serve and protect the American public. The Budget also invests in the treatment and prevention of infectious diseases, including Hepatitis C, HIV, and vaccine-preventable diseases.
Expands Healthcare, Benefits, and Services for Environmental Exposures. The Honoring our PACT Act of 2022 (PACT Act) represents the most significant expansion of veterans’ healthcare and disability compensation benefits for veterans exposed to toxins and other environmental exposures, including burn pits and Agent Orange, in 30 years. As part of the PACT Act, Congress authorized the Cost of War Toxic Exposures Fund (TEF) to fund increased costs above 2021 funding levels for healthcare and benefits delivery for veterans exposed to certain environmental hazards—and ensure there is sufficient funding available to cover these costs without shortchanging other elements of veteran medical care and benefits delivery. The Budget continues this commitment and includes $24.5 billion for the TEF in 2025, through funds appropriated by the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which is $19.5 billion above the 2023 enacted level.
Prioritizes Veterans’ Mental Health Services and Suicide Prevention for Veterans and Military Servicemembers. The Budget invests $135 million within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) research programs, together with $17 billion within the VA Medical Care program, to increase access to quality mental healthcare, with the goal of helping veterans take charge of their treatment and live full, meaningful lives. In addition, the Budget provides funding to further advance the Administration’s veteran suicide prevention initiatives and to support the Department of Defense’s efforts on Suicide Prevention and Response.
Supports America’s Workforce and Prepares America’s Economy for 21st Century Challenges
Continues Implementation of the President’s Investing in America Agenda. The Budget provides a total of $78.4 billion for highway, highway safety, and transit formula programs, supporting the amounts authorized for year four of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The Budget also reflects an additional $9.5 billion in advance appropriations provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for bridge replacement and rehabilitation, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and other programs to improve the safety, sustainability, and resilience of America’s transportation network.
Provides National, Comprehensive Paid Family and Medical Leave and Calls for Paid Sick Days. The Budget proposes a national, comprehensive paid family and medical leave program, providing up to 12 weeks of leave to allow eligible workers to take time off to care for and bond with a new child; care for a seriously ill loved one; heal from their own serious illness; address circumstances arising from a loved one’s military deployment; or find safety from domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking. The President also calls on Congress to require employers to provide seven job-protected paid sick days each year to all workers.
Empowers, Protects, and Invests in Workers. Workers power America’s economic prosperity, building the economy from the middle out and bottom up. To ensure workers are treated with dignity and respect in the workplace and are paid the wages they’re owed, the Budget invests $2 billion in the Department of Labor’s worker protection agencies. The Budget also proposes funding for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to support implementation and enforcement of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and advancement of pay equity through the collection and analysis of employer pay data. Additionally, the Budget includes funding to strengthen the National Labor Relations Board’s capacity to enforce workers’ rights to organize and collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions.
Confronts the Climate Crisis While Spurring Clean Energy Innovation, Increasing Resilience, and Protecting Natural Resources
Lowers Energy Costs and Catalyzes Clean Energy and Economic Growth in Rural Communities. The Budget builds on the President’s historic Inflation Reduction Act to reduce energy bills for families, expand clean energy, transform rural power production, and create thousands of good-paying jobs for people across rural America. The Budget provides funding for loan guarantees for renewable energy systems and energy efficiency improvements for farmers and rural small businesses, and authority for rural electric loans to support additional clean energy, energy storage, and transmission projects that would create good-paying jobs.
Invests in Clean Air and Reduces Health and Environmental Hazards for At-Risk Communities. The Budget provides a total of $1.5 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Air and Radiation to continue the development of national programs, policies, and regulations that control air pollution and radiation exposure. The Budget provides $8.2 billion for the Department of Energy (DOE) to address legacy waste and contamination in communities, as well as funding for EPA’s Toxic Substances Control Act enforcement. The Administration will ensure the investments for the management of toxic chemicals, including per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, cleanup of legacy pollution, and long-term stewardship of these sites align with the Justice40 Initiative to benefit disadvantaged communities.
Creates Jobs by Building Clean Energy Infrastructure. The Budget invests $1.6 billion through the DOE to support clean energy workforce and infrastructure projects across the Nation, including funding to weatherize and retrofit homes of low-income Americans, create good jobs and ensure reliable supply chains by manufacturing clean energy components here at home, electrify Tribal homes and transition Tribal colleges and universities to renewable energy, and support utilities and State and local governments in building a grid that is more secure, reliable, resilient, and able to integrate electricity from clean energy sources. These investments, which complement and bolster the historic funding in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, will create good-paying jobs and revitalize American manufacturing while driving progress toward the Administration’s climate goals, including 100% carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035.
Strengthens Climate Resilience in Communities and Ecosystems. Building on the National Climate Resilience Framework, the Budget invests $23 billion in climate adaptation and resilience across the federal government to address the increasing severity of flood, wildfire, drought, and other extreme weather events fueled by climate change, including funding to support the wildland firefighting workforce through permanent and comprehensive pay reform. The Budget also provides funding to help farmers, ranchers, and forestland owners meet production goals in the face of a changing climate while conserving, maintaining, and restoring natural resources on their lands. The Budget complements the historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, which dedicate more than $50 billion across the Federal government to advance climate resilience strategies in every community in America.
Supports and Expands the American Climate Corps. Last year, the Administration announced the launch of the American Climate Corps (ACC) to mobilize a new, diverse generation of more than 20,000 clean energy, conservation, and climate resilience workers, and this year, the first cohort of ACC members will begin their service. The Budget would provide mandatory funding to expand the ACC over the next decade by supporting an additional 50,000 ACC members annually by 2031. The ACC will provide job training and service opportunities on a wide range of projects that tackle climate change in communities around the country.
Doubles Down on America’s Global Climate Leadership. Beyond leading by example through domestic investments, the Budget provides a path to achieving the President’s $11 billion commitment for international climate finance. The Budget also supports $3 billion contribution through mandatory funding to finance the Green Climate Fund. The Budget builds on historic international climate finance progress made over the course of this Administration, in which estimated 2023 levels of $9.5 billion represent a near-sixfold increase from 2021.
Invests in America’s Families
Supports a Strong Nutrition Safety Net. The Budget provides $8.5 billion for critical nutrition programs, including $7.7 billion to fully fund the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to serve all eligible participants, which is critical to the health of pregnant women, new mothers, infants, and young children. By investing in outreach and modernization, WIC would reach 800,000 more women, infants, and children each month, providing vital nutrition assistance to nearly 7 million individuals, up from 6.2 million in 2021. In addition, the Budget includes an emergency contingency fund that would provide additional resources when there are unanticipated cost pressures.
Builds a Strong Foundation for Families with Universal Pre-K and Head Start. The Budget funds voluntary, universal, free preschool for all four million of America’s four-year-olds and charts a path to expand preschool to three-year-olds. High-quality preschool would be offered in the setting of the parent’s choice—from public schools to child care providers to Head Start. The Budget also increases Head Start funding by $544 million to support the Administration’s goal to reach pay parity between Head Start staff and public elementary school teachers with similar qualifications over time. Together these proposals would support healthy child development, help children enter kindergarten ready to learn, and support families by reducing their costs prior to school entry and allowing parents to work.
Expands Opportunity and Advances Equity
Advances Efforts to End Homelessness. The Budget provides $4.1 billion for Homeless Assistance Grants to continue supporting approximately 1.2 million people experiencing homelessness each year and to expand assistance to approximately 25,000 additional households, specifically survivors of domestic violence and homeless youth. These new resources build on Administration efforts that have expanded assistance to roughly 140,000 additional households experiencing homelessness since the President took office. The Budget further reflects the Administration’s commitment to make progress toward ending homelessness by providing $8 billion in mandatory funding for the acquisition, construction, or operation of housing to expand housing options for people experiencing or at-risk of homelessness, as well as $3 billion in mandatory funding for grants to provide counseling and emergency rental assistance to older adult renters at-risk of homelessness.
Honors Commitments to Support Tribal Communities. Incorporating feedback from Tribal consultations, the Budget continues to provide robust support for Tribal Nations and Native communities in keeping with our federal trust and treaty responsibilities. For example, the Budget invests $4.6 billion for the Department of Interior’s (DOI) Tribal programs. This investment in DOI’s Tribal programs build on historic investments in Indian Country under the American Rescue Plan, Inflation Reduction Act, and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and promote long-term success by addressing critical infrastructure and climate adaptation needs in Native communities.
Expands Access to Capital for Small Businesses. Building on the historic growth in small business applications under the President and Vice President’s leadership, the Budget supports historic lending levels across the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) business lending programs. The over $58 billion in lending provided in the Budget would address the need for greater access to affordable capital, particularly in underserved communities. The Budget proposes a new direct 7(a) lending program, which would further enable SBA to address gaps in access to small dollar lending.
Promotes Equity in Education and Builds a Diverse, Capable STEM Workforce. The Budget increases institutional capacity at HBCUs, TCCUs, MSIs, and under-resourced institutions, including community colleges, and doubles funding by providing $100 million for four-year HBCUs, TCCUs, and MSIs to expand research and development infrastructure. In support of the CHIPS and Science Act’s priority of building a diverse, STEM-capable workforce, the Budget provides $1.4 billion for STEM education and workforce development programs at the National Science Foundation that have an emphasis on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. The Budget also includes funding for programs focused on increasing the participation of groups historically underrepresented in science and engineering fields, including women and girls and people of color.
Protects Americans at Home and Abroad
From taking action to combat hate in America’s communities, tackle gun violence, and strengthen trust in the Nation’s democratic institutions, to defending freedom around the globe, and rebuilding key alliances, the Administration has taken decisive action to strengthen America at home and abroad, all with the goal of keeping Americans safe. The Budget builds on this progress with proposals to continue investing in State, local, Tribal, and Federal law enforcement, reducing gun violence and crime, securing the border and strengthening the immigration system, and revitalizing U.S. alliances and partnerships while confronting global threats and strengthening America’s military.
Secures the Border and Strengthens the Immigration System. In October 2023, the Administration transmitted an emergency supplemental request for managing the southwest border and migration totaling $13.6 billion. The Budget includes, and therefore reiterates the need for, the unmet needs from the October supplemental request. The Budget includes investments to build longer-term capacity in the areas of border security, immigration enforcement, and countering illicit fentanyl. This amount includes funding to hire 1,300 additional Border Patrol Agents to secure the border, 1,000 additional Customs and Border Protection Officers to stop illicit fentanyl and other contraband from entering the U.S., an additional 1,600 Asylum Officers and support staff to facilitate timely immigration dispositions, as well as $849 million for cutting-edge detection technology at ports of entry. The Budget also reiterates the ask for funding to hire 375 new immigration judge teams to help reduce the immigration case backlog. Taken together, these long-term capacity building investments equip the Nation’s border security and immigration system to more effectively respond to challenges present along the border.
Tackles Crime, Reduces Gun Violence, and Makes America’s Communities Safer. The Budget makes significant investments to bolster Federal law enforcement capacity to strengthen public safety and it also pursues new mandatory investments to combat violent crime and support victims. The Budget includes $17.7 billion for Department of Justice law enforcement, including $2 billion, an increase of over 30 percent since 2021, for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to effectively investigate and prosecute gun crimes. To support state, local, and Tribal law enforcement efforts, the Budget proposes $31.8 billion in mandatory funding to support President Biden’s Safer America Plan, and complements this plan with proposed discretionary investments of $270 million for the COPS Hiring Program and $100 million for community violence intervention and prevention. The Budget also builds upon the Safer America Plan by investing an additional $1.2 billion over five years to launch a new Violent Crime Reduction and Prevention Fund to give law enforcement the support they need to focus on violent crime, including support to hire 4,700 detectives to help drive down the high rate of unsolved violent crimes. In support of victims of crime, the Budget also requests $7.3 billion to replenish and reform the Crime Victims Fund to ensure a stable and predictable source of funding is available to support critical victim service and compensation programs over the next decade.
Prioritizes Efforts to End Gender-Based Violence. The Administration has prioritized funding for programs under the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA). These programs have seen funding increased by over 35 percent since 2021 and the Budget proposes further expansion to $800 million for programs under VAWA, including key investments in sexual assault services, transitional housing, and legal assistance for survivors. The Budget also makes clear the Administration’s priority to strongly support underserved and Tribal communities by providing $15 million for culturally-specific services, $5 million for underserved populations, $25 million to assist enforcement of Tribal special domestic violence jurisdiction under VAWA 2022’s expansions, $3 million to support Tribal Special Assistant U.S. Attorneys, and $10 million for a new special initiative to address Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP).
Combats Narcotics Trafficking. The Budget provides $3.3 billion to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to combat drug trafficking, including $1.2 billion to combat opioid trafficking, save lives, and make our communities safer. The Budget invests an additional $18 million in Domestic Counter-Fentanyl Threat Targeting Teams at the Drug Enforcement Administration to enhance America’s fight against the transnational criminal networks pushing deadly illicit fentanyl in America’s communities. The Budget also provides $494 million in grants supporting efforts to address substance use. The Budget includes funding to disrupt the international synthetic drug trade which would counter the worldwide flow of fentanyl and other synthetics that endanger public safety and health, and contribute to tens of thousands of drug-overdose deaths in the United States annually.
Reiterates the Administration’s Request for Immediate Funding for Urgent National Security Priorities Related to Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific. In October 2023, the Administration transmitted an emergency supplemental request totaling $92 billion to Congress for urgent national security needs. This request included funding to support Ukraine as it continues to defend itself against Russian aggression, Israel’s defense against terrorism, the Indo-Pacific’s regional security, life-saving humanitarian assistance, including for the Palestinian people, and other national security priorities. The request would also make significant and much needed investments in the American defense industrial base, benefitting U.S. military readiness and helping to create and sustain jobs in dozens of states across America. Absent congressional action on this emergency request, the United States will not be able to continue to provide support to Ukraine to meet their battlefield needs as they defend against Russian attacks every day, provide urgently needed military support to allies and partners, make critical DIB investments, or sustain life-saving assistance and development in some of the world’s most vulnerable areas. The Administration appreciates the bipartisan supplemental legislation that passed the Senate, which would address these urgent needs and advance our own national security.
Supports Ukraine, European Allies, and Partners. The Budget continues critical support for Ukraine, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies, and other European partner states by prioritizing funding to enhance the capabilities and readiness of U.S., allied, and partner forces in the face of continued Russian aggression. However, this Budget cannot address the critical support to Ukraine that requires congressional action on the Administration’s October 2023 National Security Supplemental request.
Promotes Integrated Deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and Globally. To sustain and strengthen deterrence, the Budget prioritizes China as America’s pacing challenge in line with the 2022 National Defense Strategy. The Department of Defense’s 2025 Pacific Deterrence Initiative highlights some of the key investments the Federal government is making, focuses on strengthening deterrence in the region, and demonstrates the Administration’s long-term commitment to the Indo-Pacific. DOD is building the concepts, capabilities, and posture necessary to meet these challenges, working to integrate deterrence efforts across the U.S. Government and with U.S. allies and partners.
Ensures Readiness Across America’s Armed Forces. The Budget continues to ensure that U.S. Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen, and Guardians remain the best trained and equipped fighting forces in the world. The Budget places additional emphasis on foundational investments to sustain current weapon systems and support increased training across DOD.
Invests in the Submarine Industrial Base. DOD conducted the 2025 Submarine Industrial Base (SIB) study to determine how to complete the once-in-a-generation recapitalization of the Submarine Force needed to increase the United States’ ability to build and sustain attack submarines to meet U.S. military requirements. These investments will also support the Administration’s commitments under AUKUS, the first major deliverable of which was the historic decision to support Australia acquiring conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines. In line with the results on this study, the Budget includes $3.4 billion for the SIB in 2025.
Provides Life-Saving Humanitarian Assistance and Combats Global Food Insecurity. The Budget provides $10.3 billion in life-saving humanitarian and refugee assistance to support more than 330 million people in need in more than 70 countries in addition to the emergency supplemental request of $10 billion to address unprecedented global humanitarian needs, including the dire humanitarian situation facing Palestinians in Gaza. The Department of State and the United States Agency for International Development will have to reduce life-saving assistance around the globe without the additional $10 billion in humanitarian assistance requested in the Administration’s October 2023 National Security Supplemental Request.
Led to the Strongest Jobs Recovery on Record and the Strongest Recovery in the World: When President Biden came into office, there was tremendous economic uncertainty. Unemployment was at 6.4% when President Biden took office. Unemployment was not projected to drop below 4% until the end of 2025 in CBO’s February 2021 (Pre-ARP) Forecast. Instead, unemployment was below 4% for the past 25 months in a row – the strongest record in more than five decades.
ARP drove historic 3-year job growth with 15 million jobs added since President Biden took office.
Not only recovered all the lost jobs but added an additional 5.5 million more jobs versus pre-Covid.
Powered the strongest recovery in the world: After the American Rescue Plan passed, the U.S. saw by far the fastest recovery in the G7, with significantly higher real wage growth. US has lower apples to apples core inflation than all major European allies.
Powered the Most Equitable Recovery in Memory: In past recessions, persistent high long-term and youth unemployment as well as high numbers foreclosures and evictions led to long-term harms – “scarring” for millions of Americans and hard, long roads back for Black and Latino Americans. President Biden’s Rescue Plan ensured that didn’t happen this time:
Historic drops in unemployment for Black and Latino workers: With the strong recovery powered by ARP, Black unemployment saw its largest 1-year drop since the early 1980s and reached its lowest-ever annual rate in 2023; Hispanic unemployment saw its fastest 1-year drop and reached its lowest 2-year rate ever in 2022 & 2023.
Least scarring in any recovery in memory: The American Rescue Plan led to the fastest drop in long-term and youth unemployment ever. It kept foreclosures historically low and evictions 20% below historic avgs.
Led to dramatic reduction in inequality: Economists have found that the strong post-ARP labor market’s wage increases for middle-income and lower-income workers erased nearly 40% of the rise in wage inequality increases from the previous four decades.
Lowest women’s annual unemployment rate since 1953: This recovery has seen a dramatic decline in women’s unemployment to an average of 3.5% in 2023, the lowest annual average since 1953.
Strong recovery for Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Native Hawaiian communities: Asian American unemployment averaged 2.9% over the last two years and AA NHPI small business formation surged. Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander unemployment also fell by half from a 9% avg. in 2020 to 4% in 2022-2023.
Led to the Largest Federal Investments in Preventing Crime, Reducing Violence, and Investing in Public Safety in History. Since the passage of the American Rescue Plan, we’ve had the largest federal investment in advancing public safety and preventing violence in our history through ARP funding and other federal funding.
Over $15 billion in ARP funds committed to preventing crime and reducing violence, with investments by over 1,000 state and local governments to avoid cuts to police budgets, hire more police officers for safe, effective, and accountable community policing, ensure first responders have the equipment they need to do their jobs, and expand evidence-based community violence intervention and prevention programs.
That includes $1.2 billion for Medicaid Mobile Crisis Intervention Services – the American Rescue Plan included $1.2 billion to fund mobile crisis intervention units staffed with mental health professionals & trained peers.
It also includes $1 billion in Family Violence Prevention and Services Program to reduce domestic violence with immediate crisis intervention, health supports, and safety.
American Rescue Plan’s Expansion of the Affordable Care Act Led to Record-Breaking Health Care Enrollment and Savings: ARP substantially increased consumer subsidies, eligibility to middle-income families and provided strong incentives for states to expand Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act. Result:
ARP/IRA-extended ACA extension led to over 21 million Americans enrolling in coverage, an increase of 9 million from when POTUS took office.
Thanks to the American Rescue Plan and Inflation Reduction Act, millions of Americans are saving an average of $800 a year on premiums. The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to keeping health insurance premiums low, giving families more breathing room and the peace of mind that health insurance brings. To do that, the President is calling on Congress to make the expanded premium tax credits that the Inflation Reduction Act extended permanent.
Provided health coverage to 3 million Americans who would have otherwise had no health insurance.
Provided affordable health coverage to millions of middle-class Americans who were previously excluded from receiving consumer subsidies.
Provided more than $3 billion in Medicaid funding to North Carolina, Missouri, Oklahoma, and South Dakota for Medicaid expansion, covering over one million people.
Gave states an easier pathway to extend Medicaid postpartum coverage for a full 12 months – ensuring access to critical care for nearly 700,000 women in 45 states and the District of Columbia.
Largest Small Business Boom in History Due to ARP-Driven Strong Recovery and Small Business Investments: The Biden-Harris Administration:
Increased COVID EIDL to $2 million while increasing anti-fraud controls.
Reformed PPP to more equitably distribute funds to the smallest businesses.
Restaurant Revitalization Fund helped over 100,000 restaurants, bars, and food trucks stay open.
Shuttered Venues Program provided relief to 13,000 venues.
Invested a historic $10 Billion in the State Small Business Credit Initiativeleveraging up to $100 billion in capital for small businesses.
Invested in innovative Community Navigators program that delivered training to over 350,000 entrepreneurs and 1:1 counseling services to over 33,000 small business owners
Invested $125 million through the Capital Readiness Program to 43 non-profit community-based organizations to help underserved entrepreneurs launch and scale their small businesses – winners ranged from Asian/Pacific Islander Chamber of Commerce to Urban League of Greater Atlanta. This, and the strong recovery that ARP powered, led to:
A record 16 million new business applications over the past 3 years; 55% higher than year before pandemic.
Share of Black households owning a business has more than doubled, and Latino and Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander small business formation surged as well.
Women-owned businesses formation substantially outpaced overall business formation.
Led to Lowest Child Poverty Rate in American History: The American Rescue Plan expanded the Child Tax Credit, made it fully refundable, and delivered it monthly in 2021. This historic expansion drove:
Child poverty cut nearly in half to lowest rate ever.
Black child poverty cut by over 50%, Hispanic child poverty cut by 43%, and dramatic drops in Native American, white and Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander child poverty—all record lows.
Over 9 million children in rural areas benefited from the expanded credit.
5 million children in Veteran and active-duty families benefited from the expanded credit.
Child Tax Credit payments were delivered reliably with the first ever monthly payment – on the 15th of each month with 90% using direct deposit.
Over 60 million children in 40 million working families received largest Child Tax Credit in history.
Historic expansion to ~240,000 Puerto Rican families: For the first time, ARP permanently made Puerto Rican families eligible for the same Child Tax Credit as other American families. ARP also quadrupled funding available for Puerto Rico’s Earned Income Tax Credit.
Funded a Historic Vaccination Campaign: ARP provided $160 billion to support vaccination, therapeutics, testing and mitigation, PPE, and the broader COVID Response effort. This led to:
Over 230 million Americans are fully vaccinated, up from 3.5 million when President Biden took office, while closing the racial gap in vaccine access.
First-Ever National Eviction Policy Called “The most important eviction prevention policy in American history.”
Emergency Rental Assistance and other American Rescue Plan assistance helped over 8 million hard-pressed renters stay in their homes without sacrificing other basic needs.
Emergency Rental Assistance and Other ARP housing policies cut eviction filings to 20% below historic averages since start of Biden-Harris Administration.
Called the “the most important eviction prevention policy in American history” by Matthew Desmond, Pulitzer Prize Winner author of “Evicted” – and the “deepest investment the federal government has made in low-income renters since the nation launched its public housing system.”
HUD Emergency Housing Vouchers have already helped 47,500 households at risk of homelessness lease their own rental housing – supporting those at risk of or experiencing homelessness or housing instability, and those fleeing domestic violence.
Helped Keep Over 225,000 Child Care Programs Open and Provided Historic Nationwide Support for Medicaid Home-Based Care
American Rescue Plan Stabilization Assistance has reached over 225,000 Child Care Providers – that employ 1 million child care workers – and have the capacity to serve as many as 10 million children.
Led to lower child care costs by $1,250 per child, helped bring hundreds of thousands of women with young children into the workforce, and increased wages for child care workers by 10%, according to Council of Economic Advisors Report.
More than 8-in-10 licensed child care centers nationwide received ARP assistance.
Benefited 30,000 rural child care programs – in most states, 97% of rural counties or more received aid.
Invested $37 billion to expand access to home-based care and support direct care workers: Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, President Biden delivered $37 billion that all 50 states and the District of Columbia chose to invest to expand access to home care and improve the quality of caregiving jobs.
Investing in ALL of America:
For First Time in History, Direct Relief to Every Town, City, County, Tribe and State – No Matter How Big or Small, Urban or Rural – So they Could Design their Own Recovery:
Before ARP, 70% of cities forecasted layoffs or major cuts in services and half of states were freezing or cutting jobs. Today, cities and states have funds to invest in major challenges – like public safety, housing, workforce, and rehiring, instead of making dramatic cuts.
ARP provided direct fiscal relief to every state & territory and 30,000 cities and towns – while previous plans reached only 154 local governments or fewer. This has led to:
Immediately reversed planned layoffs in cities and states across the country – and helped drive a recovery of 1.3 million state and local jobs, recovering all of the state and local jobs lost in roughly one-third the time it took to recover state and local jobs after the Great Recession.
Major investments in critical areas:
$25 billion to jumpstart universal broadband access – including Broadband Connections for 18 million students through the Emergency Connectivity Fund so that schools and libraries could close the homework gap.
$12.8 billion in State & Local Funds invested in over 4,300 workforce investments by state and local governments.
Over $20 billion in State & Local Funds invested in water infrastructure.
$18.5 billion in State & Local Funds invested in housing – expanding supply, investing in homeless services, and providing 3.7 million additional households rent, mortgage, and utility relief.
Largest Ever Investment in Tribal Communities
ARP provided largest one-time investment in Tribal communities in history – providing more than $32 billion specifically allocated for Tribal communities and Native people, including $20 billion in Fiscal Recovery Funds that were quickly and directly distributed to Tribal governments in 2021 to stabilize Tribal economies devastated by the pandemic.
Invested in first-ever Tribal Small Business Credit Initiative Awards.
Focus on Tribal Communities in Place-Based grants including $45 million Build Back Better Regional Challenge (BBB-RC) grant to the Mountain Plains Regional Native CDFI Coalition to grow the Native finance sector and expand economic opportunity.
Investing in Rural America: Innovative rural-focused investments include:
ARP provided direct fiscal recovery funding to every single rural government so that they could avoid painful layoffs and design their own recovery. Past recovery bills only sent direct fiscal relief to largest cities.
ARP Child Care Stabilization Reached 30,000 rural child care programs – in most states, 97% of rural counties or more received aid.
USDA invested $1 billion to expand independent meat and poultry processing capacity to give farmers more market options and fairer prices, and reduce reliance on a handful of meat and poultry corporations.
Rural unemployment rates in 2023 were at their lowest point (3.6 percent) since before 1990.
Full rural jobs recovery: Rural employment has returned fully to pre-COVID levels.
Major Investment in Workforce Training and Connecting Americans to Good Jobs:
Tens of billions from the American Rescue Plan have gone to workforce training efforts, including $12.8 billion in State and Local Funds invested in over 4,300 workforce investments across the country, including pre-apprenticeships and other programs to prepare for new infrastructure, health care & care jobs.
$500 million in competitive Good Jobs Challenge Awards for 32 Workforce High-Quality Training Partnerships across the country.
$1 billion Competitive Build Back Better Regional Challenge – 21 Winners won between $25 million and $65 million to execute transformational projects and revitalize local industries. Projects include developing workforce training programs, connecting workers to jobs, and other transformational investments.
Historic investment in expanding and supporting our health care workforce, including:
$1.1 billion investment in the community health workforce, including in mental health workforce.
Rapid deployment of 14,000+ community outreach workers (in 150+ national & local organizations). For example, the Association of Asian/Pacific Community Health Organizations used American Rescue Plan funds to establish the CHW Workforce Collaborative (the Collaborative). The Collaborative has since hired, trained, and deployed more than 250 CHWs who speak over 36 Asian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander languages in 12 continental U.S. states and Hawaii.
Establishment of the first-of-its-kind public health AmeriCorps to build and train the next generation of public health leaders, already serving 82 organizations across the country and supporting more than 3,000 AmeriCorps members.
Supporting the largest field in history (over 22,700 providers) for the National Health Service Corps, Nurse Corps, and Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery programs, treating more than 23.6 million patients in underserved communities.
Provided recovery funding for more than 15,000 School Districts to Safely Reopen K-12 Schools, Support Academic Recovery, and Invest in Student Mental Health:
ARP provided critical relief to more than 15,000 school districts to reopen safely, support academic recovery, and invest in student mental health.
Data from school district plans show that schools are using these funds well, focusing on efforts to support academic recovery:
Nearly 60% of funds are committed to investments like staffing, tutoring, afterschool and summer learning programs, new instructional resources and materials, and mental and physical health supports.
Another 23% is going to keep schools operating safely, including providing PPE and updating school facilities. This includes investments in lead abatement and nearly $10 billion for HVAC.
Nearly half of school districts invested in summer learning programs which proven to boost math scores.
This has led to:
Going from 46% of schools that had safely opened to full-time in-person teaching to 100%: In January 2021, CDC data showed that just 46% of schools were open full-time in-person. Today, all schools are open.
Led to a major increase in staffing and investments to address student mental health: Schools now employ 31% more school social workers and 31% more school nurses than pre-pandemic. School districts have added more than 600,000 local education jobs since January 2021 and recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
Eighteen Million College Students Have Received Direct Financial Assistance from the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fundthat was expanded by ARP:
Colleges reached an estimated 18 million students with direct financial assistance from the Higher Education Emergency Relief (HEERF) fund since the beginning of 2021.
Direct financial assistance for an estimated 6 million community college students.
80% of Pell Grant recipients received direct financial relief in 2021.
An estimated 450,000 students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) received direct financial assistance. In 2021, 77% of HBCUs used HEERF funds to discharge unpaid student balances.
Historic Investment in Pension Security for up to 3 million Union workers & retirees: ARP’s Special Financial Assistance is the most significant investment in pension security for union workers and retirees in the past 50 years.
Over 200 multiemployer plans that were on pace to become insolvent in the nearterm will now have solvency and able to pay full benefits until at least 2051.
Preventing a wave of multi-employer insolvencies for 2-3 million workers who would have seen major cuts to their earned retirement benefits.
Pension cuts reversed for over 80,000 workers and retirees in 18 “MPRA” multiemployer plans
Most significant effort to protect the solvency of the multiemployer pension system in almost 50 years.
First-Ever Summer Nutrition Benefit for Students w/ Nationwide Reach – Extended Permanently:
ARP created the first-ever summer nutrition benefit with nationwide reach, helping children who rely on free and reduced-price school meals afford food over the summer.
30 million young people: Reached the families of 30 million students.
Permanent: Congress extended this innovative program permanently in 2022’s Omnibus bill, the first major new permanent food assistance program in nearly five decades
Here is edited and highlighted transcript of President Biden’s fiery State of the Union Address, as delivered, ad libs and all, in which he trolled and baited Republicans, laid out the stakes of the 2024 election, and contrasted his record and his vision of the future with “my predecessor.” –Karen Rubin, [email protected]
THE PRESIDENT: (The President presents his prepared remarks to Speaker Johnson.) Your bedtime reading.
Tony! (Applause.) Thank you. (Applause.) Looking for Jill. (Applause.)
Good evening. (Applause.) Good evening. If I were smart, I’d go home now. (Laughter and applause.)
Mr. Speaker, Madam Vice President, members of Congress, my fellow Americans.
In January 1941, Franklin Roosevelt came to this chamber to speak to the nation. And he said, “I address you at a moment unprecedented in the history of the Union”. Hitler was on the march. War was raging in Europe.
President Roosevelt’s purpose was to wake up Congress and alert the American people that this was no ordinary time. Freedom and democracy were under assault in the world.
Tonight, I come to the same chamber to address the nation. Now it’s we who face an unprecedented moment in the history of the Union.
And, yes, my purpose tonight is to wake up the Congress and alert the American people that this is no ordinary moment either. Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today.
What makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack at — both at home and overseas at the very same time.
Overseas, Putin of Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond.
If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you: He will not. (Applause.)
But Ukraine — Ukraine can stop Putin. (Applause.) Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons that it needs to defend itself. (Applause.)
That is all — that is all Ukraine is asking. They’re not asking for American soldiers. In fact, there are no American soldiers at war in Ukraine, and I’m determined to keep it that way. (Applause.)
But now assistance to Ukraine is being blocked by those who want to walk away from our world leadership.
It wasn’t long ago when a Republican president named Ronald Reagan thundered, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” (Applause.)
Now — now my predecessor, a former Republican president, tells Putin, quote, “Do whatever the hell you want.”
AUDIENCE: Booo —
THE PRESIDENT: That’s a quote.
A former president actually said that — bowing down to a Russian leader. I think it’s outrageous, it’s dangerous, and it’s unacceptable. (Applause.)
America is a founding member of NATO, the military alliance of democratic nations created after World War Two prevent — to prevent war and keep the peace.
And today, we’ve made NATO stronger than ever. We welcomed Finland to the Alliance last year. (Applause.) And just this morning, Sweden officially joined, and their minister is here tonight. Stand up. (Applause.) Welcome. Welcome, welcome, welcome. (Applause.) And they know how to fight.
Mr. Prime Minister, welcome to NATO, the strongest military alliance the world has ever seen.
I say this to Congress: We have to stand up to Putin. (Applause.) Send me a bipartisan national security bill. History is literally watching. History is watching.
If the United States walks away, it will put Ukraine at risk. Europe is at risk. The free world will be at risk, emboldening others to do what they wish to do us harm.
My message to President Putin, who I’ve known for a long time, is simple: We will not walk away. (Applause.) We will not bow down. (Applause.) I will not bow down. (Applause.)
In a literal sense, history is watching. History is watching — just like history watched three years ago on January 6th — (applause) — when insurrectionists stormed this very Capitol and placed a dagger to the throat of American democracy.
Many of you were here on that darkest of days. We all saw with our own eyes the insurrectionists were not patriots. They had come to stop the peaceful transfer of power, to overturn the will of the people.
January 6th lies about the 2020 election and the plots to steal the election posed a great — gravest threat to U.S. democracy since the Civil War.
But they failed. (Applause.) America stood — (applause) — America stood strong and democracy prevailed. We must be honest: The threat to democracy must be defended [defeated].
My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth about January 6th. I will not do that.
This is a moment to speak the truth and to bury the lies. Here’s the simple truth: You can’t love your country only when you win. (Applause.)
As I’ve done ever since being elected to office, I ask all of you, without regard to party, to join together and defend democracy. Remember your oath of office to defend against all threats foreign and domestic. (Applause.)
Respect — respect free and fair elections, restore trust in our institutions, and make clear political violence has absolutely no place — no place in America. Zero place. (Applause.)
Again, it’s not — it’s not hyperbole to suggest history is watching. They’re watching. Your children and grandchildren will read about this day and what we do.
History is watching another assault on freedom. Joining us tolight [tonight] is Latorya Beasley, a social worker from Birmingham, Alabama.
Fourteen months ago — fourteen months ago, she and her husband welcomed a baby girl thanks to the miracle of IVF. (Applause.) She scheduled treatments to have that second child, but the Alabama Supreme Court shut down IVF treatments across the state, unleashed by a Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. She was told her dream would have to wait.
What her family had gone through should never have happened. Unless Congress acts, it could happen again.
So, tonight, let’s stand up for families like hers. To my friends across the aisle — (applause) — don’t keep this waiting any longer. Guarantee the right to IVF. (Applause.) Guarantee it nationwide.
Like most Americans, I believe Roe v. Wade got it right.
I thank Vice President Harris for being an incredible leader defending reproductive freedom and so much more. (Applause.) Thank you.
My predecessor came to office determined to see Roe v. Wade overturned. He’s the reason it was overturned, and he brags about it. Look at the chaos that has resulted.
Joining us tonight is Kate Cox, a wife and mother from Dallas. She’d become pregnant again and had a fetus with a fatal condition. Her doctor told Kate that her own life and her ability to have future in the fil- — children in the future were at risk if she didn’t act. Because Texas law banned her ability to act, Kate and her husband had to leave the state to get what she needed.
What her family had gone through should have never happened as well. But it’s happening to too many others.
There are state laws banning the freedom to choose, criminalizing doctors, forcing survivors of rape and incest to leave their states to get the treatment they need.
Many of you in this chamber and my predecessor are promising to pass a national ban on reproductive freedom.
AUDIENCE: Booo —
THE PRESIDENT: My God, what freedom else would you take away?
Look, its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court majority wrote the following — and with all due respect, Justices — “Women are not without electoral — electoral power” — excuse me — “electoral or political power.”
You’re about to realize just how much you were right about that. (Applause.)
Clearly — (applause) — clearly, those bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade have no clue about the power of women.
But they found out. When reproductive freedom was on the ballot, we won in 2022 and 2023. And we’ll win again in 2024. (Applause.)
If you — if you, the American people, send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again. (Applause.)
Folks, America cannot go back.
I am here to- — tonight to show what I believe is the way forward, because I know how far we’ve come.
Four years ago next week, before I came to office, the country was hit by the worst pandemic and the worst economic crisis in a century.
Remember the fear, record losses?
Remember the spikes in crime and the murder rate? A raging virus that took more than 1 million American lives of loved ones, millions left behind.
A mental health crisis of isolation and loneliness.
A president, my predecessor, failed in the most basic presidential duty that he owes to American people: the duty to care.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Lies!
THE PRESIDENT: I think that’s unforgivable.
I came to office determined to get us through one of the toughest periods in the nation’s history. We have.
It doesn’t make new, but in a — news — in a thousand cities and towns, the American people are writing the greatest comeback story never told. (Applause.)
So, let’s tell the story here — tell it here and now.
America’s comeback is building a future of American possibilities; building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down; investing in all of America, in all Americans to make every- — sure everyone has a fair shot and we leave no one — no one behind.
The pandemic no longer controls our lives. The vaccine that saved us from COVID is — are now being used to beat cancer.
Turning setback into comeback. That’s what America does. That’s what America does. (Applause.)
Folks, I inherited an economy that was on the brink. Now, our economy is literally the envy of the world.
Fifteen million new jobs in just three years. A record. A record. (Applause.)
Unemployment at 50-year lows. (Applause.)
A record 16 million Americans are starting small businesses, and each one is a literal act of hope, with historic job growth and small-business growth for Black and Hispanics and Asian Americans.Eight hundred thousand new manufacturing jobs in America and counting. (Applause.)
Where is it written we can’t be the manufacturing capital of the world? We are and we will. (Applause.)
More people have health insurance today — more people have health insurance today than ever before.
The racial wealth gap is the smallest it’s been in 20 years.
Wages keep going up. Inflation keeps coming down. Inflation has dropped from 9 percent to 3 percent — the lowest in the world and tending [trending] lower. (Applause.)
The landing is and will be soft. And now, instead of aporting — importing foreign products and exporting American jobs, we’re exporting American products and creating American jobs — (applause) — right here in America, where they belong.
And it takes time, but the American people are beginning to feel it. Consumer studies show consumer confidence is soaring.
“Buy America” has been the law of the land since the 1930s. Past administrations, including my predecessor — including some Democrats, as well, in the past — failed to buy American. Not anymore.
On my watch, federal projects that you fund — like helping build American roads, bridges, and highways — will be made with American products and built by American workers — (applause) — creating good-paying American jobs. (Applause.)
And thanks to our CHIPS and Science Act — (applause) — the United States is investing more inresearch and development than ever before. During the pandemic, a shortage of semiconductors, chips that drove up the price of everything from cell phones to automobiles — and, by the way, we invented those chips right here in America.
Well, instead of having to import them, instead of — private companies are now investing billions of dollars to build new chip factories here in America — (applause) — creating tens of thousands of jobs, many of those jobs paying $100,000 a year and don’t require a college degree. (Applause.)
In fact, my policies have attracted$650 billion in private-sector investment in clean energy, advanced manufacturing, creating tens of thousands of jobs here in America. (Applause.)
And thanks — and thanks to our Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, 46,000 new projects have been announced all across your communities.
And, by the way, I noticed some of you who’ve strongly voted against it are there cheering on that money coming in. (Laughter and applause.) And I like it. I’m with you. I’m with you.
And if any of you don’t want that money in your district, just let me know. (Laughter.)
Modernizing our roads and bridges, ports and airports, public transit systems. Removing poi- — poisonous lead pipes so every child can drink clean water without risk of brain damage. (Applause.)
Providing affordable — affordable high-speed Internet for every American, no matter where you live — urban, suburban, or rural communities in red states and blue states.
Record investments in Tribal communities.
Because of my investment in family farms — (applause) — because I invested in family farms — led by my Secretary of Agriculture, who knows more about this anybody I know — we’re better able to stay in the family for the — those farms so their — and their children and grandchildren won’t have to leave — leave home to make a living. It’s transformative.
The great comeback story is Belvidere, Illinois. Home to an auto plant for nearly 60 years. Before I came to office, the plant was on its way to shutting down. Thousands of workers feared for their livelihoods. Hope was fading.
Then, I was elected to office, and we raised Belvidere repeatedly with auto companies, knowing unions would make all the difference. The UAW worked like hell to keep the plant open and get these jobs back. And together, we succeeded.
Instead of auto factories shutting down, auto factories are reopening and a new state-of-the-art battery factory is being built to power those cars there at the same. (Applause.)
To the folks — to the folks of Belvidere, I’d say: Instead of your town being left behind, your community is moving forward again. Because instead of watching auto ja- — jobs of the future go overseas, 4,000 union jobs with higher wages are building a future in Belvidere right here in America. (Applause.)
Here tonight is UAW President Shawn Fain, a great friend and a great labor leader. Shawn, where are you? (Applause.) Stand up.
And — and Dawn — and Dawn Simms, a third-generation worker — UAW worker at Belvidere.
Shawn, I was proud to be the first President to stand in the picket line. And today, Dawn has a good job in her hometown, providing stability for her family and pride and dignity as well.
Showing once again Wall Street didn’t build America. They’re not bad guys. They didn’t build it, though. The middle class built the country, and unions built the middle class. (Applause.)
I say to the American people: When America gets knocked down, we get back up. (Applause.) We keep going. That’s America. (Applause.) That’s you, the American people.
It’s because of you America is coming back. It’s because of you our future is brighter. It’s because of you that tonight we can proudly say the state of our Union is strong and getting stronger. (Applause.)
AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
THE PRESIDENT: Tonight — tonight, I want to talk about the future of possibilities that we can build together — a future where the days of trickle-down economics are over and the wealthy and the biggest corporations no longer get the — all the tax breaks.
And, by the way, I understand corporations. I come from a state that has more corporations invested than every one of your states in the state — the United States combined. And I represented it for 36 years. I’m not anti-corporation.
But I grew up in a home where trickle-down economics didn’t put much on my dad’s kitchen table. That’s why I’m determined to turn things around so the middle class does well. When they do well, the poor have a way up and the wealthy still do very well. We all do well.
And there’s more to do to make sure you’re feeling the benefits of all we’re doing.
Americans pay more for prescription drugs than anywhere in the world. It’s wrong, and I’m ending it. (Applause.)
With a law that I proposed and signed — and not one of your Republican buddies work- — voted for it — we finally beat Big Pharma.
Instead of paying $400 a month or thereabouts for insulin with diabetes — and it only costs 10 bucks to make — they only get paid $35 a month now and still make a healthy profit. (Applause.)
And I want to — and what to do next, I want to cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for every American who needs it — everyone. (Applause.)
For years, people have talked about it. But finally, we got it done and gave Medicare the power to negotiate lower prices on prescription drugs, just like the VA is able to do for veterans. (Applause.)
That’s not just saving seniors money. It’s saving taxpayers money. We cut the federal deficit by $160 billion — (applause) — because Medicare will no longer have to pay those exorbitant prices to Big Pharma.
This year, Medicare is negotiating lower prices for some of the costliest drugs on the market that treat everything from heart disease to arthritis. It’s now time to go further and give Medicare the power to negotiate lower prices for 500 different drugs over the next decade. (Applause.)
They’re making a lot of money, guys. And they’ll still be extremely profitable. It will not only save lives; it will save taxpayers another $200 billion. (Applause.)
Starting next year, the same law caps total prescription drug costs for seniors on Medicare at $200 — at $2,000 a year, even for expensive cancer drugs that cost $10-, $12-, $15,000. Now I want to cap prescription drug costs at $2,000 a year for everyone. (Applause.)
Folks, I’m going to get in trouble for saying that, but any of you want to get in Air Force One with me and fly to Toronto, Berlin, Moscow — I mean, excuse me. (Laughter.) Well, even Moscow, probably. (Laughter.) And bring your prescription with you, and I promise you, I’ll get it for you for 40 percent the cost you’re paying now. Same company, same drug, same place.
Folks, the Affordable Care Act — the old “Obamacare” — (applause) — is still a very big deal. (Laughter and applause.)
Over 100 million of you can no longer be denied health insurance because of a preexisting condition. But my predecessor and many in this chamber want to take the — that prescription drug away by repealing Affordable Care Act.
AUDIENCE: Booo —
THE PRESIDENT: I’m not going to let that happen. (Applause.) We stopped you 50 times before, and we’ll stop you again. (Applause.)
In fact, I’m not only protecting it, I’m expanding it. The — we enacted tax credits of $800 per person per year [to] reduce healthcare costs for millions of working families. That tax credit expires next year. I want to make that savings permanent. (Applause.)
To state the obvious: Women are more than half of our population, but research on women’s health has always been underfunded.
That’s why we’re launching the first-ever White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research, led by Jill — (applause) — doing an incredible job as First Lady — (applause) — to pa- — to pass my plan for $12 billion to transform women’s health research and benefit millions of lives all across America.
I know the cost of housing is so important to you. Inflation keeps coming down. Mortgage rates will come down as well, and the Fed acknowledges that.
But I’m not waiting. I want to provide an annual tax credit that will give Americans $400 a month for the next two years as mortgage rates come down to put toward their mortgages when they buy their first home or trade up for a little more space. (Applause.) That’s for two years.
And my administration is also eliminating title insurance [fees] on federally backed mortgages. (Applause.) When you refinance your home, you can save $1,000 or more as a consequence. (Applause.)
For millions of renters, we’re cracking down on big landlords who use antitrust law — using antitrust — who break antitrust laws — (applause) — by price-fixing and driving up rents. (Applause.)
We’ve cut red tape so builders can get federally financing, which is already helping build a record 1.7 million new house u- — housing units nationwide.
Now pass — now pass [my plan] and build and renovate 2 million affordable homes and bring those rents down. (Applause.)
To remain the strongest economy in the world, we need to have the best education system in the world. (Applause.) And I, like I suspect all of you, want to give a child — every child a good start by providing access to preschool for three- and four-years-old. (Applause.)
You know, I think I pointed out last year — (applause) — I think I pointed out last year that children coming from broken homes where there’s no books, they’re not read to, they’re not spoken to very often start school — kindergarten or first grade hearing — having heard a million fewer words spoken.
Well, studies show that children who go to preschool are nearly 50 percent more likely to finish high school and go on to earn a two- and four-year degree no matter what their background is. (Applause.)
I met a year and a half ago with the leaders of the Business Roundtable. They were mad that I was ever — angry — I — well, they were discussing — (laughter) — why I wanted to spend money on education.
I pointed out to them: As Vice President, I met with over 8- — I think it was 182 of those folks — don’t hold me to the exact number — and I asked them what they need most — the CEOs. And you’ve had the same experience on both sides of the aisle. They say, “A better-educated workforce,” right?
So, I looked at them. And I say, “I come from Delaware. DuPont used to be the eighth-largest corporation in the world. And every new enter- — enterprise they bought, they educated the workforce to that enterprise. But none of you do that anymore. Why are you angry with me providing you the opportunity for the best-educated workforce in the world?”
And they all looked at me and said, “I think you’re right.” (Applause.)
I want to expand high-quality tutoring and summer learning to see that every child learns to read by third grade. (Applause.)
I’m also connecting local businesses and high schools so students get hands-on experience and a path to a good-paying job whether or not they go to college. (Applause.)
And I want to make sure that college is more affordable. Let’s continue increasing the Pell Grants to working- and middle-class families and increase record investments in HBCUs and minority-serving institutions, including Hispanic institutions. (Applause.)
When I was told I couldn’t universally just change the way in which we did — dealt with student loans, I fixed two student loan programs that already existed to reduce the burden of student debt for nearly 4 million Americans, including nurses, firefighters — (applause) — and others in public service.
Like Keenan Jones, a public educator in Minnesota, who’s here with us tonight. Keenan, where are you? (Applause.) Keenan, thank you.
He’s educated hundreds of students so they can go to college. Now he’s able to help, after debt forgiveness, get his own daughter to college. (Applause.)
And, folks, look, such relief is good for the economy because folks are now able to buy a home, start a business, start a family.
And while we’re at it, I want to give public school teachers a raise. (Applause.)
And, by the way, the first couple of years, we cut the deficit.
Now let me speak to the question of fundamental fairness for all Americans. I’ve been delivering real results in fiscally responsible ways. We’ve already cut the federal deficit — we’ve already cut the federal deficit by over $1 trillion. (Applause.)
I signed a bipartisan deal to cut another trillion dollars in the next decade. (Applause.)
It’s my goal to cut the federal deficit another $3 trillion by making big corporations and the very wealthy finally beginning to pay their fair share. (Applause.)
Look, I’m a capitalist. If you want to make or can make a million or millions of bucks, that’s great. Just pay your fair share in taxes. (Applause.)
A fair tax code is how we invest in things that make this country great: healthcare, education, defense, and so much more.
But here’s the deal. The last administration enacted a $2 trillion tax cut overwhelmingly benefit the top 1 percent — the very wealthy —
AUDIENCE: Booo —
THE PRESIDENT: — and the biggest corporations — and exploded the federal deficit. (Applause.)
They added more to the national debt than any presidential term in American history. Check the numbers.
Folks at home, does anybody really think the tax code is fair?
AUDIENCE: No!
THE PRESIDENT: Do you really think the wealthy and big corporations need another $2 trillion tax break?
AUDIENCE: No!
THE PRESIDENT: I sure don’t. I’m going to keep fighting like hell to make it fair. Under my plan, nobody earning less than $400,000 a year will pay an additional penny in federal taxes — (applause) — nobody — not one penny. And they haven’t yet.
In fact, the Child Tax Credit I passed during the pandemic cut taxes for millions of working families and cut child poverty in half. (Applause.)
Restore that Child Tax Credit. No child should go hungry in this country. (Applause.)
The way to make the tax code fair is to make big corporations and the very wealthy begin to pay their share. Remember in 2020, 55 of the biggest companies in America made $40 billion and paid zero in federal income tax. Zero.
AUDIENCE: Booo —
THE PRESIDENT: Not anymore.
Thanks to the law I wrote and we signed, big companies now have to pay a minimum of 15 percent. But that’s still less than working people pay in federal taxes.
It’s time to raise the corporate minimum tax to at least 21 percent — (applause) — so every big corporation finally begins to pay their fair share.
I also want to end tax breaks for Big Pharma, Big Oil, private jets, massive executive pay when it was only supposed to be a million bal- — a million dollars that could be deducted. They can pay them $20 million if they want, but deduct a million.
End it now.
You know, there are 1,000 billionaires in America. You know what the average federal tax is for those billionaires?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Zero!
THE PRESIDENT: No. (Laughter.)
They’re making great sacrifices — 8.2 percent.
AUDIENCE: Booo —
THE PRESIDENT: That’s far less than the vast majority of Americans pay.
No billionaire should pay a lower federal tax rate than a teacher, a sanitation worker, or a nurse. (Applause.)
I proposed a minimum tax for billionaires of 25 percent — just 25 percent. You know what that would raise? That would raise $500 billion over the next 10 years. (Applause.)
And imagine what that could do for America. Imagine a future with affordable childcare, millions of families can get what they need to go to work to help grow the economy. (Applause.)
Imagine a future with paid leave, because no one should have to choose between working and taking care of their sick family member. (Applause.)
Imagine — imagine a future with home care and eldercare, and people living with disabilities so they can stay in their homes and family caregivers can finally get the pay they deserve.
Tonight, let’s all agree once again to stand up for seniors. (Applause.)
Many of my friends on the other side of the aisle want to put Social Security on the chopping block.
If anyone here tries to cut Social Security or Medicare or raise the retirement age, I will stop you. (Applause.)
The working people — the working people who built this country pay more into Social Security than millionaires and billionaires do. It’s not fair.
We have two ways to go. Republicans can cut Social Security and give more tax breaks to the wealthy. I will —
AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible.)
THE PRESIDENT: That’s the proposal. Oh, no? You guys don’t want another $2 trillion tax cut?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Liar!
THE PRESIDENT: I kind of thought that’s what your plan was. (Laughter.) Well, that’s good to hear. You’re not going to cut another $2 trillion for the super-wealthy? That’s good to hear.
I’ll protect and strengthen Social Security and make the wealthy pay their fair share. (Applause.)
Look, too many corporations raise prices to pad their profits, charging more and more for less and less.
That’s why we’re cracking down on corporations that engage in price gouging and deceptive pricing, from food to healthcare to housing.
In fact, the snack companies think you won’t notice if they change the size of the bag and put a hell of a lot fewer — (laughter) — same — same size bag — put fewer chips in it. No, I’m not joking. It’s called “shrink-flation.”
Pass Bobby Casey’s bill and stop this. (Applause.) I really mean it.
You probably all saw that commercial on Snickers bars. (Laughter.) And you get — you get charged the same amount, and you got about, I don’t know, 10 percent fewer Snickers in it. (Laughter.)
Look, I’m also getting rid of junk fees — those hidden fees — (applause) — at the end of your bill that are there without your knowledge. My administration announced we’re cutting credit card late fees from $32 to $8. (Applause.)
Banks and credit card companies are allowed to charge what it costs them to in- — to instigate the collection. And that’s more — a hell of a lot like $8 than 30-some dollars.
But they don’t like it. The credit card companies don’t like it, but I’m saving American families $20 billion a year with all of the junk fees I’m eliminating. (Applause.)
Folks at home, that’s why the banks are so mad. It’s $20 billion in profit.
I’m not stopping there.
My administration has proposed rules to make cable, travel,utilities, and online ticket sellers tell you the total price up front so there are no surprises. (Applause.)
It matters. It matters.
And so does this. In November, my team began serious negotiations with a bipartisan group of senators. The result was a bipartisan bill with the toughest set of border security reforms we’ve ever seen.
AUDIENCE: Booo —
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, you don’t think so?
AUDIENCE: Booo —
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, you don’t like that bill — huh? — that conservatives got together and said was a good bill? I’ll be darned. That’s amazing.
That bipartisan bill would hire 1,500 more security agents and officers, 100 more immigration judges to help tackle the backload of 2 million cases, 4,300 more asylum officers, and new policies so they can resolve cases in six months instead of six years now. (Applause.) What are you against?
One hundred more high-tech drug detection machines to significantly increase the ability to screen and stop vehicles smuggling fentanyl into America that’s killing thousands of children. (Applause.)
This bill would save lives and bring order to the border. (Applause.)
It would also give me and any new president new emergency authority to temporarily shut down the border when the number of migrants at the border is overwhelming.
The Border Patrol union has endorsed this bill.
(Cross-talk.)
The federal Chamber of Commerce has — yeah, yeah. You’re saying “no.” Look at the facts. (Laughter and applause.) I know — I know you know how to read.
I believe that given the opportunity — for — a majority in the House and Senate would endorse the bill as well — a majority right now.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes!
THE PRESIDENT: But unfortunately, politics have derailed this bill so far.
I’m told my predecessor called members of Congress in the Senate to demand they block the bill. He feels political win — he viewed it as a — it would be a political win for me and a political loser for him. It’s not about him. It’s not about me. I’d be a winner — not really. I —
REPRESENTATIVE GREENE: What about Laken Riley?
(Cross-talk.)
AUDIENCE: Booo —
REPRESENTATIVE GREENE: Say her name!
THE PRESIDENT: (The President holds up a pin reading “Say Her Name, Laken Riley.”) Lanken — Lanken [Laken] Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed.
REPRESENTATIVE GREENE: By an illegal!
THE PRESIDENT: By an illegal. That’s right. But how many of thousands of people are being killed by legals?
(Cross-talk.)
To her parents, I say: My heart goes out to you. Having lost children myself, I understand.
But, look, if we change the dynamic at the border — people pay people — people pay these smugglers 8,000 bucks to get across the border because they know if they get by — if they get by and let into the country, it’s six to eight years before they have a hearing. And it’s worth the — taking the chance of the $8,000.
(Cross-talk.)
But — but if it’s only six mon- — six weeks, the idea is it’s highly unlikely that people will pay that money and come all that way knowing that they’ll be — able to be kicked out quickly. (Applause.)
Folks, I would respectfully su- — suggest to my friend in — my Republican friends owe it to the American people. Get this bill done. We need to act now. (Applause.)
AUDIENCE: Get it done! Get it done! Get it done!
THE PRESIDENT: And if my predecessor is watching: Instead of paying [playing] politics and pressuring members of Congress to block the bill, join me in telling the Congress to pass it.
We can do it together.
But that’s what he apparently — here’s what he will not do.
I will not demonize immigrants, saying they are “poison in the blood of our country.” (Applause.)
I will not separate families. (Applause.)
I will not ban people because of their faith.
Unlike my predecessor, on my first day in office, I introduced a comprehensive bill to fix our immigration system. Take a look at it. It has all these and more: secure the border, provide a pathway to citizenship for DREAMers, and so much more. (Applause.)
But unlike my predecessor, I know who we are as Americans. We’re the only nation in the world with a heart and soul that draws from old and new.
Home to Native Americans whose ancestors have been here for thousands of years. Home to people of every pla- — from every place on Earth.
They came freely. Some came in chains. Some came when famine struck, like my ancestral family in Ireland. Some to flee persecution, to chase dreams that are impossible anywhere but here in America.
That’s America. (Applause.) And we all come from somewhere, but we’re all Americans.
Look, folks, we have a simple choice: We can fight about fixing the border or we can fix it. (Applause.) I’m ready to fix it. Send me the border bill now.
AUDIENCE: Fix it! Fix it! Fix it!
THE PRESIDENT: A transformational his- — moment in history happened 58 — 59 years ago today in Selma, Alabama. Hundreds of foot soldiers for justice marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, named after the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, to claim their fundamental right to vote.
They were beaten. They were bloodied and left for dead. Our late friend and former colleague John Lewis was on that march. We miss him. (Applause.)
But joining us tonight are other marchers, both in the gallery and on the floor, including Bettie Mae Fikes, known as the “Voice of Selma.”
The daughter of gospel singers and preachers, she sang songs of prayer and protest on that Bloody Sunday to help shake the nation’s conscience.
Five months later, the Voting Rights Act passed and was signed into law. (Applause.)
But 59 years later, there are forces taking us back in time: voter suppression, election subversion, unlimited dark money, extreme gerrymandering.
John Lewis was a great friend to many of us here. But if you truly want to honor him and all the heroes who marched with him, then it’s time to do more than talk. (Applause.)
Pass the Freedom to Vote Act, the John Lewis Voting Right[s] Act. (Applause.)
And stop — stop denying another core value of America: our diversity across American life. Banning books is wrong. Instead of erasing history, let’s make history. (Applause.)
I want to protect fundamental rights.
Pass the Equality Act. (Applause.)
And my message to transgender Americans: I have your back. (Applause.)
Pass the PRO Act for workers’ rights. (Applause.)
Raise the federal minimum wage, because every worker has the right to a decent living more than eig- — seven bucks an hour. (Applause.)
We’re also making history by confronting the climate crisis, not denying it. I don’t think any of you think there’s no longer a climate crisis. At least, I hope you don’t. (Laughter.)
I’m taking the most significant action ever on climate in the history of the world. (Applause.)
I’m cutting our carbon emissions in half by 2030; creating tens of thousands of clean energy jobs, like the IBEW workers building and installing 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations — (applause); conserving 30 percent of America’s lands and waters by 2030; and taking action on environmental justice — fence-line communities smothered by the legacy of pollution.
And patterned after the Peace Corps and AmericaCorps [AmeriCorps], I launched the Climate Corps — (applause) — to put 20,000 young people to work in the forefront of our clean energy future. I’ll triple that number in a decade. (Applause.)
To state the obvious, all Americans deserve the freedom to be safe. And America is safer today than when I took office.
The year before I took office, murder rates went up 30 percent.
MR. NIKOUI: Remember Abbey Gate!
THE PRESIDENT: Thirty percent, they went up —
MR. NIKOUI: United States Marines! Kareem Mae’Lee Nikoui!
THE PRESIDENT: — the biggest increase in history.
MR. NIKOUI: (Inaudible.)
THE PRESIDENT: It was then, through no — through my American Rescue Plan — which every American [Republican] voted against, I might add — we made the largest investment in public safety ever.
Last year, the murder rate saw the sharpest decrease in history. Violent crime fell to one of its lowest levels in more than 50 years.
But we have more to do. We have to help cities invest in more community police officers, more mental health workers, more community violence intervention. (Applause.)
Give communities the tools to crack down on gun crime, retail crime, and carjacking.Keep building trust, as I’ve been doing, by taking executive action on police reform and calling for it to be the law of the land.
Directing my Cabinet to review the federal classification of marijuana and expunging thousands of convictions for the mere possession, because no one should be jailed for simply using or have it on their record. (Applause.)
Take on crimes of domestic violence. I’m ramping up the federal enforcement of the Violence Against Women Act that I proudly wrote when I was a senator so we can finally — finally end the scourge against women in America. (Applause.)
There are other kinds of violence I want to stop.
With us tonight is Jasmine, whose nine-year-old sister Jackie was murdered with 21 classmates and teachers in her elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Very soon after that happened, Jill and I went to Uvalde for a couple days. We spent hours and hours with each of the families. We heard their message so everyone in this room, in this chamber could hear the same message.
The constant refrain — and I was there for hours, meeting with every family. They said, “Do something.” “Do something.”
Well, I did do something by establishing the first-ever Office of Gun Violence Prevention in the White House, that the Vice President is leading the charge. Thank you for doing it. (Applause.)
Meanwhile — (applause) — meanwhile, my predecessor told the NRA he’s proud he did nothing on guns when he was President.
AUDIENCE: Booo —
THE PRESIDENT: After another shooting in Iowa recently, he said — when asked what to do about it, he said, just “get over it.” That was his quote. Just “get over it.”
I say stop it. Stop it, stop it, stop it. (Applause.)
I’m proud we beat the NRA when I signed the most significant gun safety law in nearly 30 years because of this Congress. We now must beat the NRA again.
I’m demanding a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. (Applause.) Pass universal background checks. (Applause.)
None of this — none of this — I taught the Second Amendment for 12 years. None of this violates the Second Amendment or vilifies responsible gun owners.
(Cross-talk.)
You know, as we manage challenges at home, we’re also managing crises abroad, including in the Middle East.
I know the last five months have been gut-wrenching for so many people — for the Israeli people, for the Palestinian people, and so many here in America.
This crisis began on October 7th with a massacre by a terrorist group called Hamas, as you all know. One thousand two hundred innocent people — women and girls, men and boys — slaughtered after enduring sexual violence. The deadliest day of the — for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. And 250 hostages taken.
Here in this chamber tonight are families whose loved ones are still being held by Hamas. I pledge to all the families that we will not rest until we bring every one of your loved ones home.
We also — (applause) — we will also work around the clock to bring home Evan and Paul — Americans being unjustly detained by the Russians — and others around the world.
Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Hamas ended this conflict by releasing the hostages, laying down arms — could end it by — by releasing the hostages, laying down arms, and s- — surrendering those responsible for October 7th.
But Israel has a h- — excuse me. Israel has a added burden because Hamas hides and operates among the civilian population like cowards — under hospitals, daycare centers, and all the like.
Israel also has a fundamental responsibility, though, to protect innocent civilians in Gaza. (Applause.)
This war has taken a greater toll on innocent civilians than all previous wars in Gaza combined. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed —
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Says who?
THE PRESIDENT: — most of whom are not Hamas. Thousands and thousands of innocents — women and children. Girls and boys also orphaned.
Nearly 2 million more Palestinians under bombardment or displacement. Homes destroyed, neighborhoods in rubble, cities in ruin. Families without food, water, medicine.
It’s heartbreaking.
I’ve been working non-stop to establish an immediate ceasefire that would last for six weeks to get all the prisoners released — all the hostages released and to get the hostages home and to ease the intolerable an- — humanitarian crisis and build toward an enduring — a more — something more enduring.
The United States has been leading international efforts to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza. Tonight, I’m directing the U.S. military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the coast of Gaza that can receive large shipments carrying food, water, medicine, and temporary shelters.
No U.S. boots will be on the ground.
A temporary pier will enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day. (Applause.)
And Israel must also do its part. Israel must allow more aid into Gaza and ensure humanitarian workers aren’t caught in the crossfire. (Applause.)
And they’re announcing they’re going to — they’re going to ca- — have a crossing in Northern Gaza.
To the leadership of Israel, I say this: Humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip. Protecting and saving innocent lives has to be a priority.
As we look to the future, the only real solution to the situation is a two-state solution over time. (Applause.)
And I say this as a lifelong supporter of Israel, my entire career. No one has a stronger record with Israel than I do. I challenge any of you here. I’m the only American president to visit Israel in wartime.
But there is no other path that guarantees Israel’s security and democracy. There is no other path that guarantees Pa- — that Palestinians can live in peace with po- — with peace and dignity.
And there is no other path that guarantees peace between Israel and all of its neighbors — including Saudi Arabia, with whom I’m talking.
Creating stability in the Middle East also means containing the threat posed by Iran. That’s why I built a coalition of more than a dozen countries to defend international shipping and freedom of navigation in the Red Sea.
I’ve ordered strikes to degrade the Houthi capability and defend U.S. forces in the region.
As Commander-in-Chief, I will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and our military personnel. (Applause.)
For years, I’ve heard many of my Republican and Democratic friends say that China is on the rise and America is falling behind. They’ve got it backwards. I’ve been saying it for over four years, even when I wasn’t president.
America is rising. We have the best economy in the world. And since I’ve come to office, our GTB [GDP] is up, our trade deficit with China is down to the lowest point in over a decade. (Applause.)
And we’re standing up against China’s unfair economic practices.
We’re standing up for peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits.
I’ve revitalized our partnership and alliance in the Pacific: India, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Pacific Islands. I’ve made sure that the most advanced American technologies can’t be used in China — not allowing to trade them there.
Frankly, for all his tough talk on China, it never occurred to my predecessor to do any of that. (Applause.)
I want competition with China, not conflict. And we’re in a stronger position to win the conflict [competition] of the 21st century against China than anyone else for that matter — than at any time as well.
Here at home, I’ve signed over 400 bipartisan bills. But there’s more to pass my Unity Agenda.
Strengthen penalties on fentanyl trafficking. You don’t want to do that, huh?
Pass bipartisan privacy legislation to protect our children online. (Applause.)
Harness — harness the promise of AI to protect us from peril. Ban AI voice impersonations and more.
And keep our truly sacred obligation to train and equip those we send into harm’s way and care for them and their families when they come home and when they don’t. (Applause.)
That’s why, with the strong support and help of Denis and the VA, I signed the PACT Act — (applause) — one of the most significant laws ever, helping millions of veterans exposed to toxins who now are battling more than 100 different cancers. Many of them don’t come home, but we owe them and their families support.
And we owe it to ourselves to keep supporting our new health research agency called ARPA-H — (applause) — and remind us — to remind us that we can do big things, like end cancer as we know it. And we will. (Applause.)
Let me close with this. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Yay! (Applause and laughter.)
I know you don’t want to hear anymore, Lindsey, but I got to say a few more things. (Laughter.)
I know I may not look like it, but I’ve been around a while. (Laughter and applause.) When you get to be my age, certain things become clearer than ever.
I know the American story. Again and again, I’ve seen the contest between competing forces in the battle for the soul of our nation, between those who want to pull America back to the past and those who want to move America into the future.
My lifetime has taught me to embrace freedom and democracy, a future based on core values that have defined America — honesty, decency, dignity, and equality — (applause); to respect everyone; to give everyone a fair shot; to give hate no safe harbor. (Applause.)
Now, other people my age see it differently. (Laughter.) The American story of resentment, revenge, and retribution.
That’s not me. I was born amid World War Two, when America stood for the freedom of the world. I grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont, Delaware, among working-class people who built this country.
I watched in horror as two of my heroes — like many of you did — Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy, were assassinated. And their legacies inspired me to pur- — pursue a car- — a career in service.
I left a law firm and became a public defender because my city of Wilmington was the only city in America occupied by the National Guard after Dr. King was assassinated because of the riots. And I became a county councilman almost by accident.
I got elected to the United States Senate when I had no intention of running, at age 29.
Then vice president to our first Black president. Now a president to the first woman vice president. (Applause.)
In my career, I’ve been told I was too young. (Laughter.) By the way, they didn’t let me on the Senate elevators for votes sometimes. They — not a joke. (Laughter.)
And I’ve been told I am too old. (Laughter.)
Whether young or old, I’ve always been known — I’ve always known what endures. I’ve known our North Star. The very idea of America is that we’re all created equal, deserves to be treated equally throughout our lives.
We’ve never fully lived up to that idea, but we’ve never walked away from it either. And I won’t walk away from it now. (Applause.)
I’m optimistic. I really am. I’m optimistic, Nancy. (Applause.)
AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
THE PRESIDENT: My fellow Americans, the issue facing our nation isn’t how old we are; it’s how old are our ideas. (Applause.)
Hate, anger, revenge, retribution are the oldest of ideas. But you can’t lead America with ancient ideas that only take us back. To lead America, the land of possibilities, you need a vision for the future and what can and should be done. (Applause.)
Tonight, you’ve heard mine.
I see a future where [we’re] defending democracy, you don’t diminish it.
I see a future where we restore the right to choose and protect our freedoms, not take them away. (Applause.)
I see a future where the middle class has — finally has a fair shot and the wealthy have to pay their fair share in taxes. (Applause.)
I see a future where we save the planet from the climate crisis and our country from gun violence. (Applause.)
Above all, I see a future for all Americans. I see a country for all Americans. And I will always be President for all Americans because I believe in America. I believe in you, the American people. (Applause.) You’re the reason we’ve never been more optimistic about our future than I am now.
So, let’s build the future together. Let’s remember who we are.
We are the United States of America. (Applause.) And there is nothing — nothing beyond our capacity when we act together. (Applause.)
God bless you all. And may God protect our troops. Thank you, thank you, thank you. (Applause.)
