White House Hails ‘COVID Relief’ Bill as ‘the Most Progressive Bill in American History’

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki hailed the $1.9 trillion bill that passed Wednesday, ostensibly for coronavirus relief, as “the most progressive bill in American history.”

The Civil Rights Act of 1964; the Social Security Act of 1935; the Affordable Care Act of 2010 — all apparently paled in comparison to the “American Rescue Plan Act of 2021,” a bill that passed along party lines and was originally touted as an emergency bill to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, but became much more.

Psaki was responding to a “progressive” question from a reporter, who asked: “When is this administration going to start moving forward on the $2 trillion climate change package, that was such a big part of then-candidate Biden’s campaign?”

She replied:

It’s only day 49, Jonathan. We’re about to pass a historic, the most progressive bill in American history. It’s be a passing today. Look, I would say that the President believes that, and he talked about this on the campaign trail, as you mentioned, was certainly a promise of his, that the United States and many other countries around the world, we’ll focus on here can create good paying union jobs, that are also consistent with our objective of addressing the climate crisis. And certainly that is central to how he’s thinking about his agenda moving forward. Those policy discussions are still ongoing, but I can assure you that he intends to deliver on the promises he made on the campaign trail, and intends to deliver on the promises he made about creating good, paying, union jobs that also are consistent with his goal of addressing the climate crisis.

Biden canceled thousands of “good, paying, union jobs” on his first day in office when he ended the Keystone XL pipeline.

The COVID relief bill includes billions of dollars in unrelated spending, including bailouts for pensions and for Demcorat-run city and state governments. It also expands welfare programs dramatically beyond the immediate impact of the pandemic.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.