WASHINGTON ¨C Joe Biden is inheriting an economic crisis as he assumes the presidency, just as he did when he became vice president a dozen years ago. But this crisis is different and, to the relief of many liberal economists, so is Biden¡¯s response.
The $1.9 trillion economic rescue package that Biden proposed Thursday is significantly larger and more targeted toward the economy¡¯s biggest problems than the stimulus he and President Barack Obama pushed through in 2009. It is not intended to generate enough consumer spending to jolt the nation into a rapid recovery, like a traditional stimulus would in a more normal recession.
It is meant instead to resuscitate economic activity by more aggressively attacking the COVID-19 pandemic through vaccines and testing, and to sustain hard-hit people and businesses until that job is done.
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