Nov. 4, 2021, 11:05 a.m. ET

Daily Political Briefing

Biden Announces Defense Deal With Australia in a Bid to Counter China

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President Biden spoke Wednesday about a new initiative with Britain and Australia to add to the Western presence in the Pacific.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration took a major step on Wednesday in challenging China’s broad territorial claims in the Pacific, announcing that the United States and Britain would help Australia to deploy nuclear-powered submarines, adding to the Western presence in the region.

If the plan comes to fruition, Australia may begin conducting routine patrols that could move through areas of the South China Sea that Beijing claims as its exclusive zone and range as far north as Taiwan. The announcement, made by President Biden, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain and Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia, is a major step for Australia, which until recent years has been hesitant to push back directly at core Chinese interests.

Australia has felt increasingly threatened, however, and three years ago was among the first nations to ban Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant, from its networks. Now, with the prospect of deploying a new submarine fleet, Australia would become a far more muscular player in the American-led alliance in the Pacific. The vessels are equipped with nuclear propulsion systems that offer limitless range and run so quietly that they are hard to detect. For Mr. Johnson, the new defense arrangement would bolster his effort to develop a “Global Britain” strategy that focuses on the Pacific, the next step after Brexit took the country out of the European Union.

“This is about investing in our greatest source of strength, our alliances, and updating them to better meet the threats of today and tomorrow,” Mr. Biden said in the East Room, flanked by two televisions showing the British and Australian leaders at their remote press briefings. “It’s about connecting America’s existing allies and partners in new ways.”

Mr. Biden and Mr. Morrison said Australia would not arm the submarines with nuclear weapons. Australia is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which bans it from acquiring or deploying nuclear weapons.

The submarines almost certainly would carry conventional, submarine-launched cruise missiles.

“Let me be clear: Australia is not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons or establish a civil nuclear capability,” Mr. Morrison said.

Yet even conventionally armed submarines, staffed by Australian sailors, could alter the naval balance of power in the Pacific.

“Attack submarines are big deal, and they send a big message,” said Vipin Narang, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who studies the use of nuclear weapons and delivery systems among major powers. “This would be hard to imagine five years ago, and it would have been impossible 10 years ago. And that says a lot about China’s behavior in the region.”

Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told a regular news briefing in Beijing on Thursday that the submarine agreement would “seriously damage regional peace and stability, exacerbate an arms race and harm international nuclear nonproliferation agreements,” Global Times, a Chinese newspaper controlled by the Communist Party, reported.

“This is utterly irresponsible conduct,” Mr. Zhao said.

In Australia, the move was considered a momentous shift by some strategists. “The Australian decision to go this way is not just a decision to go for a nuclear-powered submarine,” said Hugh White, a professor at Australian National University and a former Australian defense official. “It’s a decision to deepen and consolidate our strategic alignment with the United States against China.”

He added, “This just further deepens the sense that we do have a new Cold War in Asia and that Australia is betting that in that new Cold War, the U.S. is going to emerge victorious.”

The announcement is the latest action in a U.S. strategy to push back on Chinese economic, military and technological expansion, carried out by Mr. Biden; his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan; and his Asia coordinator, Kurt Campbell. Over the past eight months, they have blocked China from acquiring key technologies, including materials for semiconductor production; urged nations to reject Huawei; edged toward closer dealings with Taiwan; and denounced China’s crackdown on Hong Kong.

Next week, Mr. Biden will gather the leaders of “the Quad” — an informal partnership of the United States, Japan, India and Australia — at the White House for an in-person meeting, another way to demonstrate common resolve in dealing with Beijing.

Mr. Biden spoke with President Xi Jinping of China last week for roughly 90 minutes, only the second time the two leaders have spoken in since Mr. Biden took office. Few details of the conversation were revealed, so it is unclear whether Mr. Biden gave his Chinese counterpart warning of the move with Australia. But none of it would have come as a surprise to Beijing; earlier, the Australians had announced a deal with France for less technologically sophisticated submarines. That deal collapsed.

Nonetheless, the decision to share the technology for naval reactors, even to a close ally, was a major move for Mr. Biden — one bound to raise protests by China and questions from American allies and nonproliferation experts. The United States last shared the nuclear propulsion technology with an ally in 1958 in a similar agreement with Britain, administration officials said.

“There is a shared understanding that we need to strengthen deterrence and actually be prepared to fight a conflict if one occurs,” said Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund, a policy think tank. “It reflects growing concern about Chinese military capabilities and intentions.”

The nuclear reactors that power American and British submarines use bomb-grade, highly enriched uranium, a remnant of Cold War-era designs. And for two decades, Washington has been on a drive to eliminate reactors around the world that use bomb-grade fuel, substituting them with less dangerous fuel to limit the risk of proliferation.

The movement gained momentum after the Sept. 11 attacks. President Barack Obama ran a series of “nuclear summits” for world leaders, used to pressure nations to remove from service old reactors that used highly enriched uranium so that the fuel could never fall into the hands of terrorists.

But the arrangement with Australia seems almost sure to move in the other direction: Australia is likely to power its submarines with highly enriched uranium, because for now, there is little choice. Aware of the contradiction, administration officials cast the decision as an “exception,” though one they would not make for other major allies. That includes South Korea, which in decades past was caught moving toward building its own nuclear arsenal. Australia has been a leader in the nonproliferation movement.

A senior administration official deeply involved in the negotiations over the deal said on Wednesday that the United States had not made a deal like this in decades and that, “after today, it’s not likely we will do it again.”

Officials said that the details would be worked out over the next 18 months, including strict controls on nuclear technology. They said Australia had already agreed not to produce the highly enriched fuel, meaning it will probably buy it from American stockpiles. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III will lead the administration in the partnership, which also involves collaborating on cybertechnology and artificial intelligence.

The United States has explored moving away from highly enriched uranium. A study by the Pentagon’s top nuclear advisory group concluded in 2019 that the United States should shift to reactors that burn low-enriched uranium, which cannot be easily diverted to use in weapons. But that process, the experts concluded, could not begin until after 2040.

“There will be many who say we are giving the Australians a gateway drug for a nuclear capability,’’ Mr. Narang said. “It is not something we would let other major allies get away with, much less help make it possible.”

But China’s aggressive tactics in the Pacific and America’s desire to ensure security for Taiwan required the United States to empower Australia, even if it meant carving an exception to the effort to reduce the use of weapons-grade nuclear fuel, according to Elbridge Colby, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense strategy and force development.

“If nonproliferation has to take a back seat, that’s the right call,” said Mr. Colby.

Australia has, for more than seven decades, been a member of the “Five Eyes,” the intelligence alliance that includes the major English-speaking victors of World War II. The other four are the United States, Britain, Canada and New Zealand. They regularly exchange information on cyberthreats and a range of terrorism threats.

Biden expresses confidence in Milley amid questions about his calls to China.

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Gen. Mark A. Milley’s “calls with the Chinese and others in October and January were in keeping with these duties and responsibilities conveying reassurance in order to maintain strategic stability,” his spokesman said.Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The senior-most U.S. military officer did not bypass his civilian leaders when he called his Chinese counterpart in October and January, his office said on Wednesday after the release of excerpts from a new book that alleges that the conversations centered on concerns about President Donald J. Trump.

Peril,” by the Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, says that Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, secretly called China twice to offer reassurances that Mr. Trump had no plans to start a war with the country as part of an effort to remain in power.

General Milley’s spokesman, Col. Dave Butler, said in a statement that “all calls from the chairman to his counterparts, including those reported, are staffed, coordinated and communicated with the Department of Defense and the interagency,” a reference to the government’s national security bureaucracy.

“General Milley continues to act and advise within his authority in the lawful tradition of civilian control of the military and his oath to the Constitution,” the statement said.

The general’s “calls with the Chinese and others in October and January,” Colonel Butler said, “were in keeping with these duties and responsibilities conveying reassurance in order to maintain strategic stability.”

The colonel did not address the specifics of the conversations, which, according to the book, also included assurances that the United States was not collapsing.

“Things may look unsteady,” he told Gen. Li Zuocheng of China on Jan. 8, two days after Mr. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol to try to stop the certification of his election loss, in the second of two calls. “But that’s the nature of democracy, General Li. We are 100 percent steady. Everything’s fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.”

Despite those assurances, the book asserts that General Milley was so concerned about Mr. Trump that he convened a meeting with top commanders later that day to remind them of the procedures for launching a nuclear weapon and that he needed to be involved in such decisions.

The Pentagon press secretary, John F. Kirby, said on Wednesday that there was nothing wrong with the request, saying it was “completely appropriate for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as the senior military adviser to the president, to want to see the protocols reviewed.” He added that “I see nothing in what I’ve read that would cause any concern.”

President Biden said on Wednesday that he had “great confidence in General Milley.”

“The president has complete confidence in his leadership, his patriotism and his fidelity to our Constitution,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said during a briefing on Wednesday.

But some Republicans took to Twitter to express their anger.

“I will be declining this invite to dine with Attempted Coup Leader & Renowned Critical Race Theorist Mark Milley,” Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida wrote, posting an image of an invitation from the National Defense University to a reception next month where the general is the featured speaker. The general is unlikely to have personally extended the invite; he took Mr. Gaetz to task during a congressional hearing in June, after the lawmaker criticized military institutions for teaching about systemic racism.

Instead of demurring, as military leaders often do during congressional hearings, General Milley retorted that he had read Mao, Marx and Lenin and that “doesn’t make me a communist.”

During the tumultuous last months of his presidency, Mr. Trump made clear in a series of meetings that he was not averse to using the military to help him remain in power, officials said. But even then, the Pentagon sought to avoid the impression that military leaders would go around their civilian counterparts.

Similar to other news reports and books released since Mr. Trump left office, “Peril” describes how his presidency essentially collapsed in its final months, particularly after his election loss and the start of his campaign to deny its results. Top aides — including General Milley, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Attorney General William P. Barr — became convinced that they needed to take drastic measures to stop Mr. Trump from trampling on democracy or setting off an international conflict. General Milley thought that the president had declined mentally after the election, according to the book.

A senior Pentagon official said that Mr. Esper, in the weeks before he was unceremoniously fired by Mr. Trump, also made calls of reassurance to foreign counterparts worried about the president.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting from Washington.

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With Democrats defecting, a crucial drug pricing proposal in the $3.5 trillion bill failed a key test.

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Senator Joe Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema are resisting the economic package, raising worries about rising debt.Credit...Al Drago for The New York Times

A Democratic plan to control prescription drug prices as part of their $3.5 trillion social policy package failed in a House committee on Wednesday after moderates refused to support it, imperiling a crucial element of the measure and a substantial chunk of the revenue needed to finance it.

A trio of moderates — Representatives Scott Peters of California, Kurt Schrader of Oregon and Kathleen Rice of New York — joined Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee in voting against the drug proposal, leaving its fate in doubt even as senior Democrats insisted they would ultimately be able to include some version of it in the final package.

Still, the defeat reflected the many disputes brewing among Democrats that are threatening to derail or scale back their $3.5 trillion domestic policy plan. And it illustrated the challenges that party leaders face in uniting their slim majorities around legislation that represents President Biden’s best chance of accomplishing key parts of his agenda.

The setback came on a day when Mr. Biden was meeting separately with two Democratic holdouts to the social policy package, Senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, both of whom have balked at the measure’s price tag.

Unity on the measure is crucial given that Republicans are unanimous in opposition. Democrats plan to push it through under a special budget process known as reconciliation, which shields it from a filibuster and allows it to pass on a simple majority vote. But given Democrats’ slim majorities, they cannot afford even one defection in the 50-50 Senate and can spare as few as three votes in the House.

The drug pricing provision is a major policy priority for congressional leaders and the White House. High drug prices are a major consumer issue and a priority for voters.

“Polling consistently shows immense bipartisan support for Democrats’ drug price negotiation legislation,” Henry Connelly, a spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, said in a statement after the vote. “Delivering lower drug costs is a top priority of the American people and will remain a cornerstone of the Build Back Better Act as work continues between the House, Senate and White House on the final bill.”

The House provision would have established aggressive price caps for certain prescription drugs, tying the government’s price for medicines to the prices paid in other countries. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the policy would result in prices for certain drugs falling by more than half. Under the legislation, that lower price would be made available to other drug buyers in the country, lowering prices for employer and individual health plans too.

The pharmaceutical industry strongly opposes such policies, which could substantially reduce their revenues. Just hours before the vote, PhRMA, the industry trade group, announced a 7-figure television ad purchase designed to stave off price regulation. A large group of industry CEOs also released an open letter opposing the bill. It appeared as a paid ad Wednesday in the Washington Post, Politico, and The Hill.

In the Senate, more divisions are brewing over the social policy bill. Ms. Sinema arrived at the White House early Wednesday morning to meet with Mr. Biden about her concerns about the emerging legislation.

“Today’s meeting was productive, and Kyrsten is continuing to work in good faith with her colleagues and President Biden as this legislation develops,” John LaBombard, her spokesman, said in a statement.

Mr. Manchin was set to meet with Mr. Biden later Wednesday.

Janet Yellen urges House Democrats to give the I.R.S. more power to crack down on tax evasion.

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Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellin at the White House in June.Credit...Pool photo by Chris Kleponis/EPA, via Shutterstock

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen is pressing Representative Richard Neal, the Democratic chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, to include the Biden administration’s full proposal for bolstering the Internal Revenue Service in its $3.5 trillion spending package, arguing that more resources and greater powers to catch tax evaders are crucial for reducing the “tax gap.”

In a letter to Mr. Neal, Ms. Yellen urged lawmakers not to water down a central piece of the proposal, which would give the Internal Revenue Service visibility into the financial accounts of taxpayers through more robust reporting requirements. Treasury officials say that will enable the agency to better crack down on rich people and companies who are not paying what they owe.

Legislation released by House Democrats earlier this week included the $80 billion in additional funding for the I.R.S. that the Biden administration had proposed to help expand staffing and enforcement capacity. However, a separate proposal to enact an “information reporting” regime was absent from the bill.

“As you consider specific policy choices in designing an information reporting regime, it is important to ensure that the reporting regime is sufficiently comprehensive, so that tax evaders are not able to structure financial accounts to avoid it,” Ms. Yellen wrote. “Any suggestion that instead this reporting regime will be used to target enforcement efforts on ordinary Americans is wholly misguided.”

Critics of the proposal have argued that giving the I.R.S. more power to peer into taxpayer financial information represents an invasion of privacy and have said it could lead to frivolous audits for political reasons. The Biden administration insists that audit rates will not rise for taxpayers who earn less than $400,000.

In an addendum to the letter, Mark J. Mazur, Treasury’s acting assistant secretary for tax policy, reiterated Treasury’s estimates that the investment in enforcement staff and new information reporting powers could generate $700 billion in government revenue over a decade. He suggested that Congress might be considering including a more modest reporting mechanism and warned that doing so would be less effective.

“Clearly, this will lower the estimated revenue raised from the proposed reporting regime relative to earlier administration estimates,” Mr. Mazur wrote.

At a hearing on Wednesday, Mr. Neal said he had received the letters and underscored the importance of strengthening tax enforcement without adding new burdens to small businesses.

“We are in conversations with the administration on reporting proposals that target sophisticated tax avoidance and evasion without impacting middle-class and working Americans,” Mr. Neal said.

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Biden to host leaders to discuss climate change ahead of a U.N. summit.

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President Biden returned to the White House on Tuesday from a trip through Western states.  Credit...Al Drago for The New York Times

President Biden will virtually convene on Friday some of the leaders of the nations most responsible for climate change, urging them to do more to slash greenhouse gas emissions ahead of a critical United Nations summit in November.

Mr. Biden also will urge other countries to sign onto a global goal of reducing methane, the main component of natural gas and an extremely powerful greenhouse gas, a White House official said, speaking to reporters on a background call on the condition of anonymity.

Countries that sign on to the “global methane pledge” hammered out by the United States and Europe would agree to work together to reduce global methane emissions by at least 30 percent by 2030, according to European and United States climate negotiators who were not authorized to discuss details of the plan publicly.

“We’re trying to get people to join into a global effort to try to cope with methane,” John Kerry, Mr. Biden’s climate change envoy, said in an interview over the weekend, adding, “It’s hugely destructive. It accelerates the rate of global damage.”

Carbon dioxide is the biggest driver of climate change, but methane is more potent in the shorter term, warming the atmosphere more than 80 times as much as the same amount of carbon dioxide does over a 20-year period.

Karen Harbert, president and chief executive of the American Gas Association, said in a statement that natural gas utilities in the United States are “all in” when it comes to addressing climate change, but did not comment directly on the methane challenge.

The meeting will be the second this year of the Major Economies Forum, which Mr. Biden revived after former President Donald J. Trump’s withdrawal from the forum and the Paris climate agreement. Mr. Biden rejoined the climate accord when he entered office.

The White House did not release a list of attendees, but the Major Economies Forum traditionally includes a mix of wealthy European nations and major emerging economies. It is not clear if officials from China, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, will attend on Friday, but the country’s president, Xi Jinping, attended the first summit in April.

The discussions come less than six weeks before talks in Glasgow, where nations that promised in Paris to stave off the worst consequences of climate change will be expected to show what they’ve done and pledge even more ambitious goals.

The Biden administration has promised to cut emissions 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Getting there though depends on passage of a $3.5 trillion budget bill that includes a policy to substantially cut fossil fuel pollution by the power sector. That legislation is facing an uphill battle in Congress.

China and India have not yet pledged deeper emissions cuts, and the Biden administration has been leaning on both countries to do so.

The United Nations’ top climate science body found this year that the world has already baked in a hotter future and that global warming is likely to rise around 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next two decades. Keeping temperatures below that threshold is critical to avoiding the worst consequences of climate change, and the window to enact strong policies is closing.

Republicans seek Pennsylvania voters’ personal information as they try to review the 2020 results.

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Republicans in Pennsylvania, which President Biden won by more than 80,000 votes, have sought to cast doubt on the election’s outcome.Credit...Matt Rourke/Associated Press

Pennsylvania Republicans moved on Wednesday to seek personal information on every voter in the state as part of a brewing partisan review of the 2020 election results, rubber-stamping more than a dozen subpoenas for driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.

The expansive request for personal information, directed at Pennsylvania’s Department of State and approved in a vote by Republicans on a State Senate subcommittee, is the first major step of the election inquiry. The move adds Pennsylvania to a growing list of states that have embarked on partisan-led reviews of the 2020 election, including a widely criticized attempt to undermine the outcome in Arizona’s largest county.

Democrats in the State Senate pledged to fight the subpoenas in court, saying at a news conference after the vote on Wednesday that the requests for identifiable personal information were an overreach, lacked authority and potentially violated federal laws protecting voter privacy.

“Senate Democrats, going forward, intend to take legal action against this gross abuse of power by filing a lawsuit, challenging in the courts, and to ask the courts to declare the Senate Republicans’ actions in violation of separation of power, as well as declaring that they had no authority to issue these subpoenas,” said State Senator Jay Costa, the minority leader.

Democrats control several of the top offices in Pennsylvania — including those of governor, attorney general and secretary of state — and it was not immediately clear what legal basis they might have to challenge the subpoenas. Nor was it clear how the transfer of information would begin to take place, if it does proceed, or which people or entities involved in the review would control the information. While the review will be funded by taxpayers, its potential cost has yet to be revealed.

The Department of State did not respond to requests for comment or issue a statement on the subpoenas.

Josh Shapiro, the attorney general of Pennsylvania and a Democrat, vowed to fight the subpoenas as well.

“There are legal consequences to turning over people’s private, personal information without their permission,” Mr. Shapiro said in an interview. “My office will not allow that to happen. And people can be assured that we will take whatever legal action necessary to protect their private personal information from this charade.”

The subpoenas, 17 in all, also included a request for communications between state and county election officials. They did not include requests for election machines or equipment.

But election experts still expressed worries about the amount of personal information being requested and the security risks, both to voters and to the electoral process, that could come with such a transfer of information. Such risks have grown increasingly common in partisan election reviews around the country.

“That’s a really bad idea to have private information floating around in a Senate caucus,” said Marian K. Schneider, an elections lawyer for the A.C.L.U. of Pennsylvania. “And it’s really not clear how the data is going to be used, who’s going to be looking at it, who can have access, how it’s going to be secured. And it’s unclear to me why they even need the personally identifying information.”

Republicans in several states have pursued similar reviews — misleadingly labeled “audits” to suggest an authoritative nonpartisan investigation — in the name of protecting “election integrity.” The reviews have often centered on baseless claims and debunked conspiracy theories about the presidential contest, spurred in part by the falsehoods promoted by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies.

President Biden won Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes, and the results have been reaffirmed by the state’s Department of State.

“The entirety of our proceedings today, issuing subpoenas, is based upon such a noncredible foundation,” said Anthony H. Williams, a Democratic state senator who represents an area near Philadelphia. He added that it was “very troubling and, in fact, leads us to darker days in this country, such as when hearings like these, during the McCarthy era, were held, where voices were silenced and liberties were denied, being bullied by the power of the government.”

State Senator Jake Corman, the top Republican in the chamber, who approved the review last month, portrayed the investigation as merely trying to inform future legislation and lashed back at Democrats, asking what they were “scared of.”

“All we’re doing is seeking facts, seeking information, so that we can make better public policy,” Mr. Corman said.

When questioned by Democrats about why voters’ Social Security and driver’s license information was necessary for the investigation, State Senator Cris Dush, who is leading the review as chair of the Governmental Operations Committee, brought up unspecific and unfounded claims that ineligible voters had cast ballots in the Pennsylvania election.

“Because there have been questions regarding the validity of people who have voted, whether or not they exist,” Mr. Dush said. “Again, we’re not responding to proven allegations, we are investigating the allegations to determine whether or not they are factual.”

He continued: “If we have the sum errors within the voter registration system which allow for such activity, then we have a responsibility as a legislature to create legislation which will prevent that from happening in future elections.”

A chief concern of Democrats, beyond the subpoenas, was which people or companies might gain access to the stockpile of personal information of the nearly seven million Pennsylvanians who cast a ballot in the 2020 election.

State Senator Steven J. Santarsiero, a Democrat from the Philadelphia suburbs, pressed Mr. Dush on his selection process. Mr. Santarsiero asked specifically whether any of the vendors the Republicans are considering have ties to Sidney Powell, the lawyer who has popularized many false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

“The answer to that is I really don’t know, because it is not something that is relevant to my determination,” Mr. Dush responded.

“So it’s possible, then?” Mr. Santarsiero asked.

“It is absolutely possible,” Mr. Dush said.

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The Biden administration looks to expanded child care funds to combat labor shortages.

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transcript

Biden Administration Pushes for Expanded Child Care Funding

Vice President Kamala Harris and Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen urged an overhaul of the country’s child care system. The Biden administration detailed failures by the private sector to provide affordable, high-quality care to families as the U.S. faces labor shortages.

This report confirms what millions of American families know and experience every day. Child care remains too expensive and out of reach for far too many working families in our country. This report confirms we need to bring costs down with a significant public investment in our child care industry. The report the Treasury is releasing today finds that most parents need child care at the exact moment when they can least afford it, at the beginning of their career when their income is lowest. To get quality child care, the average family would have to spend 13 percent of their income, more than they spend on food. But even this spending isn’t enough to ensure an adequate supply of child care. The United States has a severe child care shortage. Roughly half of Americans live in child care deserts, areas where there’s only one day care spot for every three kids. The child care centers that do exist are often in disrepair, operating on razor-thin margins with workers whose wages keep them at the edge of poverty. The free market works well in many different sectors, but child care is not one of them. It does not work for the caregivers. It does not work for the parents. It does not work for the kids. And because it does not work for them, it does not work for the country.

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Vice President Kamala Harris and Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen urged an overhaul of the country’s child care system. The Biden administration detailed failures by the private sector to provide affordable, high-quality care to families as the U.S. faces labor shortages.CreditCredit...Virginia Lozano for The New York Times

The Biden administration is trying to build support for proposals to overhaul the nation’s rickety child care system as it pushes Congress to embrace a $3.5 trillion plan to expand social safety programs and looks for ways to combat ongoing labor shortages.

In a new report released on Wednesday, the Treasury Department painted a dire picture of child care in America, outlining what it called failures by the private sector to provide high-quality care at affordable prices and making the case that the federal government must do more to help families care for their children.

“This is not just happenstance — sound economic principles explain why relying on private money to provide child care is bound to come up short,” the report said.

The Biden administration has already disbursed nearly $40 billion to help child care providers and day care centers through funds that were approved in the American Rescue Plan, which Congress passed earlier this year. The Treasury Department has also been distributing monthly advance child tax credit payments to families with children.

On Wednesday afternoon, Vice President Kamala Harris visited the Treasury Department to make the case for more child care funding and described the lack of quality care in the country a national emergency.

“Childcare remains too expensive and out of reach for far too many working families in our country,” Ms. Harris said, adding that other advanced economies invest more in child care than the United States. “We need to bring costs down with a significant investment in our child care industry.”

Ms. Yellen made the case for bold investments in both personal and economic terms. She recalled that 40 years ago when she was returning to work after her son was born, she placed an advertisement in a local newspaper offering a few dollars more than the standard wage for a babysitter because the work was so important. She reflected on the fact that she was fortunate enough to be able to pay a higher wage and said that if she had not been able to find quality care at that time in her career, she might not be Treasury Secretary today.

Ms. Yellen lamented that most families must bear the cost of child care when they are young and their earnings are low. She said that public investment is needed because of all of the economic benefits that come when parents have access to quality care for their children.

“The free market works well in many different sectors, but child care is not one of them,” Ms. Yellen said. “Child care is a textbook example of a broken market.”

Mr. Biden’s plan includes child care subsidies for low- and middle-income families, universal prekindergarten for children who are 3 and 4 years old and a permanent expansion of the child and dependent care tax credits.

The Treasury report argues that families are currently spending about 13 percent of their income to pay for child care costs for a child under the age of 5. Despite the high costs, child care providers tend to be poorly compensated.

The patchwork nature of the child care system often creates incentives for a parent to leave the labor force, losing access to health insurance and retirement benefits. The United States is currently grappling with a labor shortage, and the Biden administration views bolstering access to child care as a way to get people back to work.

“In basic economic terms, the president’s proposals will expand both demand for and supply of child care,” the report said. “With expanded demand, more children will have access to the rich early experiences and more parents will be able to choose to remain in the labor force.”

Congress pushes for a path to citizenship for ‘documented Dreamers.’

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A march for workers’ and human rights in Los Angeles on May 1.Credit...David Mcnew/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Senators introduced a bipartisan bill on Wednesday that would create a pathway to citizenship for some children and young adults who were raised in the United States but face deportation at age 21.

The legislation, called the America’s Children Act, was introduced after the House this week advanced the text of a sweeping $3.5 trillion spending plan that would also write into law a pathway to citizenship for the same group, known as documented Dreamers. They are young people who lived in the country legally until age 21 as the dependents of parents who hold nonimmigrant visas. But many never qualify for permanent residency. And some that are eligible for green cards as children get stuck in the vast green card backlog and are unable to gain residency before they turn 21 and are kicked out of line.

The moves indicate broad bipartisan support in both chambers for documented Dreamers following a yearslong push for them to be included in an immigration overhaul.

“For too long, young immigrants like us, who have been raised and educated here as Americans, have been forced to leave the country we call home,” said Dip Patel, the founder of Improve the Dream, an organization that advocates for documented Dreamers. “The introduction of America’s Children Act means so much to thousands of us who have only known America as their home.”

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program introduced by President Obama in 2012, which protects about 650,000 young immigrants from deportation, requires applicants to be undocumented, leaving out documented Dreamers.

Under the proposed legislation, at least 200,000 young adults who have lived in the United States for at least 10 years on a valid visa and have graduated from an institution of higher education would be eligible for permanent residence.

Mr. Patel, 25, a Canadian citizen, has lived in the United States for more than 16 years. His parents came to the United States on E-2 visas, a program that allows small business investors to reside in the United States, and opened a grocery store in Southern Illinois.

It was not until he was in high school that Mr. Patel realized that his dependent visa would expire when he turned 21, complicating his future. An E-2 visa is one that can be renewed endlessly, but it does not offer a pathway to citizenship.

“It’s such a little-known thing,” said Mr. Patel. “Most Americans don’t even know that it’s possible for someone, an immigrant child, to be brought here under a legal status but still not have a path to citizenship.”

The America’s Children Act is the first effort to create a path to citizenship for documented Dreamers that has broad bipartisan support in the House and Senate. The Senate bill is co-sponsored by three Democrats who sit on the Judiciary Committee and have jurisdiction over immigration legislation, including the chairman, Senator Dick Durban of Illinois. The Republican Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Susan Collins of Maine are also co-sponsors.

Democrats hope to pass broad immigration reform, including for documented Dreamers, through the $3.5 trillion social policy package, but it is unclear whether it will ultimately be included. Because Democrats are seeking to pass the bill through a unilateral maneuver known as budget reconciliation, the Senate parliamentarian, who is the chamber’s top rules enforcer, will ultimately rule on whether including an overhaul of immigration law in the economic package would violate a Senate rule dating back to the mid-1980s.

Representative Deborah Ross, Democrat of North Carolina, who led the effort to introduce stand-alone legislation to protect documented Dreamers and co-sponsored the House bill, said that she thought the case for including immigration reform in the legislation was clear. She cited the tens of billions of dollars in growth that experts have estimated that documented Dreamers alone would add to the economy if allowed to live in the United States.

Mr. Patel, a clinical pharmacist in Illinois, has been able to stay in the United States, first on a student visa and now on an employer-sponsored work visa. But many in his position are not able to find alternative visas and must leave the country. And Mr. Patel still must renew his current visa every three years. The process is challenging because the terms of a nonimmigrant visa require the applicant to demonstrate that they do not intend to settle permanently in the United States.

“In my case and that of many others, it’s almost impossible to do that when you’ve lived in America for basically your whole life,” Mr. Patel said.

He began Improve the Dream to create a supportive community for other families in his position, he said, many of whom were afraid to speak up for fear that they might lose what immigration status they had. The organization grew quickly, and ultimately helped draft the America’s Children Act.

“I have confidence that documented Dreamers won’t be ignored anymore,” Mr. Patel said. “This broad bipartisan support shows that this solution should be included in any efforts at immigration reform.”

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The pope addresses the debate on denying Communion to Biden and other supporters of abortion rights.

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Pope Francis spoke with journalists en route to Rome from Bratislava, Slovakia, on Wednesday.Credit...Pool photo by Tiziana Fabi/EPA, via Shutterstock

Pope Francis weighed in on Wednesday on a debate roiling the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, where bishops are considering denying Communion to politicians, like President Biden, who support abortion rights.

“I have never refused the Eucharist to anyone,” Francis said, adding that bishops should be pastors, not politicians.

In his usual fashion, the pope did not give a simple, direct answer. But he left little doubt about his view, invoking a phrase he has used before: “Communion is not a prize for the perfect.”

The Vatican in June warned conservative bishops in the country against refusing Communion to Mr. Biden, who is only the second Roman Catholic to be U.S. president.

The Biden administration has been clear about wanting to protect a woman’s right to an abortion, and its fight with Republican lawmakers in Texas over the issue escalated on Tuesday. The Justice Department asked a federal judge to issue an order that would prevent the state from enforcing a law that prohibits nearly all abortions.

The Justice Department argued in its emergency motion that the state adopted the law, known as Senate Bill 8, “to prevent women from exercising their constitutional rights,” reiterating an argument the department made last week when it sued Texas to prohibit enforcement of the contentious new legislation.

Biden meets with executives to push vaccine mandates.

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“It’s about saving lives — that’s what this is all about,” President Biden said of vaccine mandates at a meeting with business leaders on Wednesday.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Biden met on Wednesday with top executives from Microsoft, the Walt Disney Company, Kaiser Permanente and other companies that have endorsed vaccine mandates, days after he announced a federal effort to require employees of large companies to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or be tested regularly.

The administration sought to use the meeting to show that vaccine mandates are good for the economy while spotlighting employers that have mandates for workers or have praised Mr. Biden’s order. The meeting was meant to rally more business support for mandates.

“It’s about saving lives — that’s what this is all about,” said Mr. Biden, who was flanked by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House pandemic coordinator.

“Vaccinations mean fewer infections, hospitalizations and deaths, and in turn it means a stronger economy,” he added.

One of the invitees to the meeting, Tim Boyle, the chief executive of Columbia Sportswear, said in an interview on Wednesday that his company had drafted a policy mandating vaccines months ago. But it had held off carrying it out until Mr. Biden announced last week that he was directing the Labor Department to issue an emergency safety declaration that would effectively function as a vaccine mandate for tens of millions of workers. Columbia Sportswear told its workers that it will put a vaccine requirement in place next week.

Mr. Boyle said Columbia was concerned that by acting alone it would risk losing as many as half of its workers in distribution centers and retail stores. Mr. Biden’s order, he said, reduced the risk that workers who don’t want to get vaccinated would quit to work elsewhere.

“There’s much less opportunity for people to go somewhere they don’t need to be vaccinated,” he said.

Mr. Boyle said vaccinations had divided Columbia’s work force. Managers in its Portland, Ore., headquarters have largely embraced the shots, he said, but retail and warehouse workers throughout the country have been more reluctant. He said that hesitancy had hurt the company, with infections and the threat of infection forcing closures and cleanings of locations.

“Those operations are predicated on people working together closely,” he said. Having unvaccinated workers is “highly disruptive.”

Several of the business leaders who met with Mr. Biden have installed mandates already, for at least part of their work force, including Disney, Walgreens and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

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Newsom keeps his job after receiving strong support from voters.

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Supporters of Gov. Gavin Newsom of California at a campaign event at a union hall in San Francisco on Tuesday.Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times

SACRAMENTO — A Republican-led bid to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom of California ended in a decisive defeat on Tuesday, as Democrats in the nation’s most populous state closed ranks against a small grass-roots movement that accelerated with the spread of Covid-19.

Larry Elder, a conservative talk radio host, led 46 challengers hoping to become the next governor, but Californians strongly affirmed their support for Mr. Newsom in a special election that cost the state an estimated $276 million.

The Associated Press called the race for Mr. Newsom, who had won in a 62 percent landslide in 2018, less than an hour after the polls closed on Tuesday. About 65 percent of the nearly nine million ballots counted by 1 a.m. Pacific time said the governor should stay in office.

“It appears that we are enjoying an overwhelmingly ‘no’ vote tonight here in the state of California, but ‘no’ is not the only thing that was expressed tonight,” Mr. Newsom told reporters late Tuesday.

“We said yes to science. We said yes to vaccines. We said yes to ending this pandemic. We said yes to people’s right to vote without fear of fake fraud and voter suppression. We said yes to women’s fundamental constitutional right to decide for herself what she does with her body, her faith, her future. We said yes to diversity.”

The result reflected the state’s recent progress against the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed more than 67,000 lives in California. The state has one of the nation’s highest vaccination rates and one of its lowest rates of new virus cases — which the governor tirelessly argued to voters were the results of his vaccine and mask requirements.

Though polls showed that the recall was consistently opposed by some 60 percent of Californians, surveys over the summer suggested that likely voters were unenthusiastic about Mr. Newsom. As the election deadline approached, however, his base mobilized.

Electoral math did the rest: Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one in California, and pandemic voting rules encouraged high turnout, allowing ballots to be mailed to each of the state’s 22 million registered, active voters with prepaid postage. More than 40 percent of those Californians voted early.

Since early this year, when it became clear that the recall would have the money and time to qualify for the ballot, Mr. Newsom campaigned relentlessly. Noting that Mr. Elder had built a career bashing liberal causes, the governor painted him as a Trump clone who would foist far-right policies on a state that has been a bastion of liberal thinking.

“Vote no and go,” the governor told voters, suggesting that they stick to voting against recalling him and not even dignify the second question on the ballot, which asked who should replace Mr. Newsom if the recall succeeds.

Millions of voters chose not to answer the second question, with Mr. Elder receiving nearly half of the vote from those who did. As of early Wednesday morning Kevin Paffrath, a Democrat, had received about 10 percent of the vote, and Kevin Faulconer, a Republican and former mayor of San Diego, had garnered about 9 percent.

In somber victory remarks, Newsom warns: ‘Trumpism is not dead.’

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Newsom Remains Governor After California’s Recall Election

Gov. Gavin Newsom gave a victory speech after defeating California’s Republican-led recall vote in a landslide.

We are enjoying an overwhelmingly “no” vote tonight here in the state of California. But “no” is not the only thing that was expressed tonight. I want to focus on what we said yes to as a state. We said yes to science. We said yes to vaccines. We said yes to ending this pandemic. We said yes to people’s right to vote without fear of fake fraud or voter suppression. We said yes to women’s fundamental constitutional right to decide for herself what she does with her body, her fate and future. And so I’m humbled and grateful to the millions and millions of Californians that exercise their fundamental right to vote and express themselves so overwhelmingly by rejecting the division, by rejecting the cynicism, by rejecting so much of the negativity that’s defined our politics in this country over the course of so many years. I just want to say this, tonight I’m humbled, grateful, but resolved in the spirit of my political hero, Robert Kennedy, to make more gentle the life of this world. Thank you all very much. And thank you to 40 million Americans, 40 million Californians, thank you for rejecting this recall.

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Gov. Gavin Newsom gave a victory speech after defeating California’s Republican-led recall vote in a landslide.CreditCredit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s five-minute victory speech came not to a crowd of cheering supporters like the one he addressed with President Biden Monday night in Long Beach, but to a group of reporters gathered in Sacramento.

He dispensed with the typical laundry list of thanks to key political allies and instead sought to frame the entire recall campaign as the latest battle in a broader fight against the forces aligned with former President Donald J. Trump.

“Democracy is not a football, you don’t throw it around,” Mr. Newsom said. “It’s more like an antique vase. You can drop it, smash it into a million different pieces. And that’s what we’re capable of doing if we don’t stand up and meet the moment and push it back.”

Mr. Newsom’s triumph over the recall, he essentially said, was less a cause for celebration than it was an excuse to exhale. A California campaign that Democrats framed as one between the science of the pandemic, multicultural democracy and abortion rights didn’t leave the governor with much room for a victory lap.

The issues he mentioned at the beginning of his speech — promoting vaccines, diversity and women’s rights — are reflected in much of California’s current policy. This wasn’t a campaign Mr. Newsom ran with a platform of moving the state forward; it was a continuation of his warning that if Republicans take control, they would usher in a dystopian, Trump-inspired wasteland.

“We may have defeated Trump, but Trumpism is not dead in this country,” Mr. Newsom said. “The Big Lie, the Jan. 6 insurrection, all the voting suppression efforts that are happening all across this country, what’s happening with the assault on fundamental rights, constitutional rights of women and girls, it’s a remarkable moment in our nation’s history.”

In California, where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two to one, this message was more than enough to carry the day, with a blowout margin that mirrored the 2020 presidential election result in the state.

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The pandemic was the No. 1 issue for many voters in California’s recall election.

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California Residents Head to the Polls in Recall Election

Voters across California cast their ballots in a recall election to decide the political fate of Gov. Gavin Newsom. The Democrat’s main challenge is from the Republican candidate Larry Elder.

I support the desire to recall him. You know, that’s a constitutional right that, you know, people are exercising, and so, I just don’t support him being recalled. I don’t see Elder or any of the other ones as viable candidates or leadership for the state. I think that Gavin Newsom has failed our state so immensely. I have four children, and the last two years have been atrocious with the schools and just the lockdowns and the homeless and the taxes, it’s too much. Go, Larry! Personally, I think that we need change in California. You know, I’ve been born and raised here, and the state has been in decline for the last five or so years, you know, and it’s getting worse and worse and we really need some change in California. It’s always important to vote, no matter what, to exercise your rights. But today is particularly important because I’m not sure that everybody understands the consequences for not voting. If we recall Governor Newsom, who knows who we end up with, and the options, in my opinion, are not looking very good. I just think there is no reason for the recall. I think the job he’s doing is the best job that he could do, regardless of political affiliation. I think he’s, he’s handling the business he needs to handle for the people. We’ve made a mess of our beautiful state. Larry Elder seems to have all the issues, what’s going on, what needs to be addressed, and I wish him the best today, I pray he gets in, and like I said, I’m a Democrat and Gavin needs to go. Sorry, I voted him in. He needs to go.

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Voters across California cast their ballots in a recall election to decide the political fate of Gov. Gavin Newsom. The Democrat’s main challenge is from the Republican candidate Larry Elder.CreditCredit...Ryan Young for The New York Times

The coronavirus pandemic helped propel the recall attempt of Gov. Gavin Newsom to the ballot in California, and on Tuesday, his handling of the pandemic was an overriding issue as about two-thirds of voters decided he should stay in office.

Across the nation’s most populous state, voters surveyed by New York Times reporters outside polling places cited Mr. Newsom’s pandemic restrictions and support for vaccine mandates as key factors in whether they voted to oust or keep him. The recall served as a preview of next year’s midterm elections nationally, with voters sharply divided along partisan lines over issues such as masks, lockdowns and mandatory vaccinations.

In San Francisco, Jose Orbeta said he voted to keep Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, in office, calling the recall a “waste of time.”

“It’s a power grab by the G.O.P.,” said Mr. Orbeta, a 50-year-old employee of the Department of Public Health. He said Mr. Newsom had done a “decent job” leading California through the pandemic despite his “lapse of judgment” in dining at the French Laundry during the height of the outbreak.

In Yorba Linda, a conservative suburb in Orange County, Jose Zenon, a Republican who runs an event-planning business with his wife, said he was infuriated by Mr. Newsom’s pandemic restrictions and support for vaccine mandates. He pointed to examples of his friends leaving for other states, such as Arizona, Nevada and Texas.

“That train out of here is really long, and we might be getting on it, too,” Mr. Zenon said, just after voting for Larry Elder, the Republican talk-radio host who led the field of challengers hoping to take Mr. Newsom’s job.

“The rules this governor made put a lot of businesses in an impossible position — we were without income for 10 months. Here we live in a condo, we want to have a home, but it’s just impossible. Something’s got to change.”

Some voters in an increasingly politically active constituency of Chinese Americans supported the recall. They blamed Mr. Newsom for a rise in marijuana dispensaries, homeless people and crime that they said are ruining the cluster of cities east of Los Angeles where Chinese immigrants, many of them now American citizens, have thrived for years.

“We really don’t like the situation in California,” said Fenglan Liu, 53, who immigrated to the United States from mainland China 21 years ago and helped mobilize volunteers in the San Gabriel Valley.

“No place is safe; crime is terrible. Newsom needs to go. This is failed management, not the pandemic.”

In the wealthy Orange County suburb of Ladera Ranch, Candice Carvalho, 42, cast her ballot against the recall because, she said, “I thought it was important to show that Orange County isn’t just Republicans.”

She expressed frustration that the recall was taking so much attention at a critical moment in the pandemic.

“It was a waste of money and completely unnecessary,” she said. “And I’m a little shocked we’re focusing on this now.” While she acknowledged knowing little about the specifics of state election laws, she said it seemed “slightly too easy” to get the recall attempt on the ballot.

A report on poverty invites debate over the effectiveness of government stimulus.

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A Quitman County Sheriff’s Department officer distributing food boxes at an aid site in Marks, Miss., in May.Credit...Rory Doyle/Reuters

A report released on Tuesday that examined poverty in the United States has invited comparisons of the effectiveness of government stimulus in response to the two most recent economic emergencies: the 2009 financial crisis and the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.

Despite the pandemic, the share of people living in poverty in the United States fell to a record low last year — a finding that economists and policymakers across the political spectrum have hailed as a sign that the emergency stimulus program worked.

Robert Reich, the Berkeley economics professor who served as labor secretary under President Clinton, tweeted that the data proved government aid was effective in fighting poverty. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, head of the conservative American Action Forum and a former adviser to Senator John McCain, told the DealBook newsletter that the recent stimulus was “the best policy response to a recession the U.S. has ever seen.”

But there is still room for interpretation. According to the report, a measure of the poverty rate that accounts for the impact of government programs fell to 9.1 percent of the population last year, from 11.8 percent in 2019. But the official rate, which was devised in 1963 by a Polish immigrant and Social Security administrator, Mollie Orshansky, is based almost entirely on the cost of food and leaves out some major aid programs, rose last year to 11.4 percent. (The difference between poverty measures was once a plotline in “The West Wing.”)

So, was the pandemic stimulus the “best” emergency response? One thing it has going for it is a seemingly flattering comparison to the government’s efforts in the financial crisis in 2009.

As David Leonhardt of The Morning newsletter recently wrote, President Obama’s 2009 economic aid package has long been seen as a failure, even though the economy began growing again within a few months of its passage and it likely helped stave off an even deeper downturn. Government benefits and tax changes lifted 53 million Americans out of poverty last year, more in absolute and relative terms than in 2009, according to calculations from the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

But consider the other side of the ledger. In 2009, the government spent $810 billion on its stimulus. Last year’s increase in government aid was some $1.8 trillion. That translates, very roughly, to around $35,000 per person lifted out of poverty versus $20,000 in 2009, though not all the money in either package went to lower-income Americans.

The debate over cost and efficiency will influence whether the government should spend trillions more, as President Biden and many Democrats now want, to fund more permanent government aid programs. Detractors, including many Republicans, can point to data showing a seeming drop in the benefit per dollar spent as a reason to be cautious.

But Arloc Sherman, an economist at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, said spending now could save money later.

“I would not say the 2020 stimulus was a less effective stimulus,” he said. “But it could have been more efficient and effective if we had a comprehensive and well-designed security system in the first place.”

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Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘Tax the Rich’ dress at the Met Gala stirs criticism from both sides of the political spectrum.

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Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, at the Met Gala on Monday.Credit...Nina Westervelt for The New York Times

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York arrived at the Met Gala on Monday evening dressed in a custom Brother Vellies ivory wool jacket dress with an organza flounce and the message “Tax the Rich” emblazoned in red across her back.

Designers and corporate sponsors generally pay the hefty price of admission — $35,000 a ticket, or $200,000 to $300,000 a table — for the gala’s guests, who typically include a quorum of Kardashians, Hollywood A-listers and supermodels. The star-studded event is often referred to as the Oscars of fashion.

Many New York City elected officials are invited as well, as “guests of the museum” who do not pay to attend.

Regardless, Representative Ocasio-Cortez’s attendance — and dress — provided easy fodder for her most reliably triggered critics. On Twitter, Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s eldest son, tagged her as a fraud for sending a message about taxing the rich “while she’s hanging out with a bunch of wealthy leftwing elites.”

More surprising was the criticism Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, generated from the left — a chorus of dissatisfaction from progressives and self-described socialists disappointed by a gesture they said caricatured a progressive cause and underscored their sense that she is not maximizing her ability to fight for working people from Congress.

But among Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s defenders was Maya Wiley, the former New York City mayoral candidate whose campaign Ms. Ocasio-Cortez endorsed earlier this year.

“To walk into a space that’s about art, fashion, luxury and wealth and say, ‘Here is the conversation we have to confront, but I’m going to confront it in the vernacular of the event,’ is brilliant,” Ms. Wiley said.

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