Biden relief plan: Mixed one-year reviews

It’s not often that a president gets everything he asks for, but that’s what happened.

President Joe Biden wanted $1.9 trillion to help the country climb out of the coronavirus crisis last year, and Democrats in Congress delivered.

The American Rescue Plan was stuffed with rental assistance, tax rebates, direct payments and money to distribute vaccines that had just become available. Less than two months after Biden took office, it was a hopeful sign that he could fulfill his campaign promise to get Washington’s often lumbering machinery working again.

But the legislation’s legacy is more complicated than it originally appeared. Depending on who’s telling the story, it’s either Biden’s first success or a trap that he set for himself.

It may well prove to have been a bit of both.

Friday is the anniversary of Biden’s signing of the American Rescue Plan, and the second anniversary of the World Health Organization’s declaration that the coronavirus had become a global pandemic. Looking back, administration officials defend the relief package as a necessary step to insulate the economy and promote a national rebound, and they point to historically low unemployment now as proof of their success.