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WASHINGTON – President Biden on Friday signed an executive order intended to bring relief more quickly to low-income families and the unemployed, ending a series of measures taken in his first three days in office aimed at reversing the policies of the administration and embrace liberal priorities.
The orders, more than two dozen, focused on areas such as the environment, workers and unions, as well as an increased role for government in the economy. They come as the White House seeks to persuade skeptical Republican senators to back its $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus legislation.
Some GOP lawmakers say the initiatives undermine Mr Biden’s drive for bipartite deals and national unity, a major theme of his inaugural address. At the same time, while his early political efforts have been widely applauded by Democrats, some progressives are urging him to go further, mirroring the president’s challenge to balance pressures from both sides.
Mr Biden’s order on Friday ordered government agencies to take immediate action to improve federal benefits, such as expanding food aid, improving the distribution of stimulus checks and clarifying the fact that workers can refuse jobs in unsafe working conditions and still be entitled to unemployment benefits.
“It cannot be who we are as a country,” the president said as he signed the orders in the White House State Dining Room. “We can’t – don’t want – to let people go hungry. Boasting the coronavirus relief plan that he is urging Congress to approve, he cited what he called a once-in-a-century public health crisis that has injured American families and said that the death toll from coronavirus could reach more than 600,000.
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