President Biden will travel to his childhood hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, this week to rally public support for his $4.7 trillion economic agenda, the White House announced Monday.
The trip, set for Wednesday, will be Mr. Biden’s first visit as president to his birthplace in northeast Pennsylvania, a key battleground state in the 2020 presidential election and likely again in 2024.
More details about the trip were not immediately released.
The Scranton visit comes during a pivotal week as Mr. Biden and his Democrats labor to break the deadlock surrounding his economic agenda. On Monday, the president had calls with “a full spectrum of Democrats,” according to the White House. On Tuesday, the president will meet separately with groups of progressives and moderates to try to salvage his legislative agenda.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the president’s schedule reflects the pressure he’s feeling to get his economic agenda across the finish line.
“The president is certainly feeling an urgency to move things forward, to get things done,” Ms. Psaki said. “I think you’ve seen that urgency echoed by members on the Hill that time is not unending here.”
Mr. Biden has spent months negotiating the specifics of his twin economic bills. The first one is a roughly $1.2 trillion proposal to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure and the second is a $3.5 trillion bill to expand the social safety net and fight climate change.
Both bills are in limbo amid Democratic infighting over how to trim down the $3.5 trillion bill to a spending level acceptable to moderates.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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