White House insists Covid vaccine booster plan is going ahead despite hurdles – live | US news

The White House press secretary confirmed that Joe Biden’s speech this afternoon will focus on ensuring the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share in taxes, in order to help middle-class Americans reach their full economic potential.

Jen Psaki said on Twitter, “Later this afternoon, @POTUS will lay out his case on the economy–and the big choice facing America at this moment: Are we going to continue with an economy that benefits the wealthy and big corporations or are we going to set the country on a path that benefits working people?”

The speech comes as Democrats in Congress squabble over the size and scope of their spending package, with moderates like Joe Manchin angling for a less expensive bill that would cover less of Biden’s economic agenda.

Joe Biden will deliver a speech on his economic agenda today, as Democrats in Congress work to advance the $3.5tn spending package that includes many of the president’s economic proposals.

The president’s speech will focus on “leveling the playing field in our economy to bring down costs and ensure that the backbone of the country, the middle class, can finally get a break,” according to Biden’s official schedule.

“He’ll underscore that we’ve reached an inflection point where we have to choose whether or not we’re going to perpetuate an economy where the wealthiest taxpayers and biggest corporations get to play by a set of rules they’ve written for themselves while middle-class families aren’t given a fair shot,” a White House official told NBC News.

“He’ll also argue that we don’t need to reduce the cost of being rich in America; we need to lower the cost of raising a child, of prescription drugs, of taking care of an aging parent, of health care, of high-speed internet and of hearing aids.”

Biden is scheduled to deliver the speech at 1:45 pm ET. Stay tuned.

Melanie Schreiber reports for the Guardian:

Dr Michelle Fiscus worked in the health sector for almost 20 years, most recently as Tennessee’s top vaccine official. Until the day she was fired, she got excellent job performance reviews.

And then one day she sent out a reminder that in Tennessee, children over the age of 14 may choose to be vaccinated without asking their parents first.

And she lost her job.

Now Fiscus, whose fate was seized upon as an example of the costs of speaking up for vaccines in a deeply red state, is strongly backing Joe Biden’s recent defense of vaccine mandates – something that has prompted howls of outrage from many conservatives but which Fiscus believes will save lives.

Fiscus, who was fired in July, said the mandates make a lot of sense, and there’s a long precedent for creating rules to protect both our health and the health of those around us. In fact, vaccination mandates have been around since the US was founded.

“I think it’s absolutely the right thing to do,” Fiscus told the Guardian. It was “the right decision, and this will be on the right side of history”.

Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.

The Biden administration has said that coronavirus vaccine boosters will be available starting next week, but there are still many hurdles to overcome before that becomes possible.

Last month, the president and his pandemic response team said booster shots would be made available to those who received the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines starting the week of September 20. Health experts are recommending that Americans receive a booster shot eight months after their second vaccine dose.

However, now it seems that only Pfizer shots will be ready by the administration’s target date, and there has been international criticism of the proposal, given how many people in the world have not yet received their first dose.

A Food and Drug Administration panel will meet tomorrow to discuss Pfizer’s application to offer third doses to all Americans 16 and older. If the panel offers a negative view of the proposal, it could further delay the rollout of booster shots.

But the White House is keeping an optimistic view of things so far. “Nothing has changed, as it relates to the eight top doctors who put out that statement almost a month ago,” press secretary Jen Psaki said yesterday. “There was always going to be a process; that process is proceeding.”

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.