It’s Monday.
When Biden Bits was posted for Friday, President Biden had tweeted 3 times. He added 5 tweets giving him a Friday Tweeting Total of 8 tweets and 0 retweets…
So here’s the tea on the above graph…
Finding the source is hard, we know by clues it comes from BLS.gov., but finding the data used simply hasn’t happened for me yet…
But…
On Friday, President Biden offered remarks on the newly released Jobs Report for January. The YouTube is 15 minutes and 8 seconds long. His full remarks can be found here.
President Biden: I’m pleased to report this morning what many of you already know: that America’s job machine is going stronger than ever, fueling a strong recovery and opportunity for hardworking women and men all across this great country. America is back to work. Today we learned that in January, our economy created 467,000 jobs. But that’s not all. We learned that job growth in November and December over last year was revised up by more than 700,000 jobs. On top of that, 400,000 jobs are previously — on top of the 400,000 that were previously reported. This morning’s report caps off my first year as President. And over that period, our economy created 6.6 million jobs — 6.6 million jobs. If you can’t remember another year when so many people went to work in this country, there’s a reason: It never happened. Take a look at the chart. You can look at the last — all the way back to President Reagan. Look how many jobs we’ve created in — on average per month. This is — it’s never happened before. And, look, history has been made here.
The YouTube video of the remarks are 27 minutes and 59 seconds long. Note the start of the video is a bit fuzzy for me, but clears up before the minute mark.
The fact-sheet; Executive Order to Boost Quality of Federal Construction Projects
Biden-Harris Administration will make federal procurement more economical and efficient by improving coordination and minimizing disruptions on large federal construction projects
Tomorrow, the President will sign an Executive Order to improve timeliness, lower costs and increase quality in federal construction projects. Federal construction projects span the country – from the maintenance of nuclear sites to base construction to waterways and flood projects. By requiring the use of project labor agreements (PLAs) on federal construction projects above $35 million, the Order will help alleviate the management and coordination challenges that can stymie progress on major construction projects. This helps projects get completed on time and helps the government get the best value for taxpayers’ dollars.
Based on FY2021 figures, this Order could affect $262 billion in federal government construction contracting and improve job quality for the nearly 200,000 workers on federal construction contracts. Additionally, the President’s Executive Order directs the departments of Defense and Labor, along with the Office of Management Budget, to lead a training strategy for the nearly 40,000-person strong contracting workforce on the implementation of this Order’s policy.
This Executive Order is just one of many steps the Biden-Harris Administration is taking that will improve the efficiency of federal procurement. Since taking office, the President fulfilled his commitments to strengthen Buy American rules, and secured a reliable supply of experienced, quality workers for federal service contracts. As of January 30th, federal contractors in new or extended contracts must pay a $15/hour minimum wage, as the President directed in Executive Order 14026.This new Executive Order, while only applicable to federal procurement, advances the Administration’s commitment to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, on-time and at reasonable cost. The Order will only apply to provisions in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that are direct federal procurement, which excludes construction projects financed through grant dollars to non-federal entities. The Executive Order will benefit taxpayers, contractors, and workers by:
White House.gov. 02/03/2022.
- Alleviating the coordination challenges on large, complex projects. Multi-million-dollar projects can present real management challenges to the primary contractor on the project, which has to work with multiple businesses and multiple types of skilled labor to complete a project. PLAs can help coordinate diverse contractors and sub-contractors and their employees working on a project and prevent disputes between subcontractors. Additionally, workers will have more confidence in the management of the project and a greater commitment to completing the project if they have a voice at the table. This helps projects get completed on time by minimizing work disruptions. On-time projects save the government, and taxpayers, money.
- Raising quality standards for contractors bidding on federal projects. PLAs help raise the standards of all bidders on federal contracts. Contractors who offer lower wages or do not train their workers will need to raise their standards to compete with other high-wage, high-quality companies. Businesses with well-trained workers will be more likely to bid for and win federal contracts. Well-trained, high quality workers are more productive, completing projects well and on time.
- Reducing uncertainty in the contracting process. PLAs standardize the work rules, compensation costs, and dispute settlement processes on construction projects. This standardization helps create more certainty for the government and, therefore, taxpayers, about the costs and completion rate for projects.
- Increasing training for the federal contracting workforce. The Executive Order directs the Departments of Defense and Labor, along with the Office of Management and Budget, to lead a training strategy for the contracting workforce on Project Labor Agreements and the implementation of this Order. This training will create a more uniform and accessible experience for contractors interacting with departments and agencies across the federal government.
Saturday’s Tweeting Total was 3 tweets and 0 retweets…
Google tells me the Family and Medical Leave Act was signed into law by former President Bill Clinton on February 5th, 1993…
The tweet text–in part comes from the linked above remarks he gave regarding the January Jobs Report on Friday…
President Biden: If you can’t remember another year when so many people went to work in this country, there’s a reason: It never happened.
On Wednesday the White House COVID-19 Response Team held a briefing.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky says during the briefing that; For those who were boosted, the average of weekly deaths was 0.1 per 100,000 people, meaning that unvaccinated individuals were 97 times more likely to die compared to those who were boosted.
Their full remarks can be found here.
Sunday’s Tweeting Total was 2 tweets and 0 retweets…
The 1 minute and 4 second video is also taken from remarks he gave on Friday regarding the jobs report…
President Biden: Last week, I called a meeting of CEOs from General Motors, Ford, Microsoft, and other major corporations in America. Mary Barra of General Motors, the chairman of the board — the CEO, I should say — announced a $7 billion investment in a Michigan manufacturing plant to manufacture electric vehicles. It’s going to create 4,000 new, quality jobs at prevailing wage. That’s on top of the announcement last year made by Ford’s CEO, Jim Farley, who was with us, to invest $11 billion to make electric vehicles, creating 11,000 new good-paying jobs. Look, last Friday I went to Pittsburgh, where the Pacific — the Union Pacific Railroad announced the largest purchase of American battery-electric locomotives in history, built in Erie, Pennsylvania — built by American manufacturing workers in Western Pennsylvania, creating even more good-paying jobs.
President Biden: Look, we all know we’re in competition with the world. These announcements are the drumbeat a job — of a job resurgence unlike anything we’ve seen in our history. And it didn’t happen by chance. It’s a result of the economic plan I put into action on day one when I said it’s going be “buy America.” I’m delighted to keep it going and expand what we’ve done, because we have a great opportunity ahead of us to further progress — make progress where — beyond what we’ve already made.
The White House posted the following readout:
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. spoke today with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett of Israel to reaffirm the warm and historic partnership between the United States and Israel. The leaders discussed the shared security and other challenges in the Middle East region, including the threat posed by Iran and its proxies. The President underscored his commitment to expanding stability and partnerships across the Middle East region, as exemplified by the Abraham Accords, together with Israelis and Palestinians enjoying equal measures of security, freedom, and prosperity. They discussed the recent U.S. operation against the ISIS leader in northwestern Syria and the ongoing U.S. commitment to protect the American people and support the defense of its partners across the Middle East region. President Biden conveyed his unwavering support for Israel’s security and freedom of action, emphasizing his administration’s full support for replenishing Israel’s Iron Dome system. The two leaders also discussed global challenges outside of the Middle East region, including the potential of further Russian aggression against Ukraine. The President thanked the Prime Minister for his invitation to visit Israel and said he looks forward to a visit later this year. They agreed that their teams would remain in close consultation.
White House.gov. 02/06/2022.
I believe we might hear more about the trip today or at least confirmation that a trip is being planned, but it does appear no official announcement was issued by the White House; it was just teased via the readout of the call…
For Monday, February 7th, 2022, President Biden has received his daily brief. This afternoon President Biden welcomes the new Chancellor of Germany Oalf Scholz to the White House for a bilateral meeting. Late this afternoon President Biden and Chancellor Scholz will hold a joint-press conference.
President Biden has tweeted 1 time so far for Monday…
The White House posted the following background press call previewing the German Chancellor’s visit. As always these background calls are given by unnamed Senior Administration Official or Officials.
Thanks, [senior administration official], and thanks to everybody for joining. Delighted to have the opportunity to speak with you tonight about the Chancellor’s visit to Washington tomorrow.
White House.gov. 02/07/2022.
President Biden is very much looking forward to welcoming Chancellor Scholz on his first visit to Washington and the White House, and sees it as a good opportunity to affirm the deep and enduring ties between the United States and Germany.
Germany is one of our closest and strongest Allies in Europe. The President and the Chancellor had the opportunity to interact last October in Rome at the G20 Summit. Scholz, at the time, was serving as Finance Minister and coalition negotiations were going on. But it was clear that he was the presumptive chancellor, which is why then-Chancellor Merkel brought him along to the meeting of the P3
[Quad] countries, so it gave the President an opportunity to have an initial conversation with him as part of the handover from Chancellor Merkel to ensure continuity.
The President had a very early congratulatory call with Chancellor Scholz, and they have since consulted together with other European leaders a few times over the last two months since he became Chancellor.
The President is looking forward to getting to know Chancellor Scholz personally on this first official visit to Washington as head of state. And I would say that the fact he is coming here almost two months to the day from taking office illustrates the continued importance that the United States places on our bilateral relationship with Germany and the importance of this relationship between these two leaders.
The leaders have a very full agenda to discuss tomorrow. We expect them to talk significantly about the situation in Ukraine and Russia. They’ll likely discuss their shared concerns about Russia’s military buildup on Ukraine’s border and their shared commitment to both ongoing diplomatic efforts to encourage Russia to de-escalate tensions as well as ongoing efforts to ensure deterrence to further Russian aggression.
Related to that, they will discuss our ongoing efforts to prepare a robust sanctions package that would impose severe costs if Russia further invades Ukraine.
Germany, at the start of the year, assumed the presidency of the G7, and so I expect that will be a significant part of their conversation as well, including Germany’s agenda and the way our two countries can work together with fellow G7 members to address global challenges.
Many of the things that comprise Germany’s G7 agenda are priorities for the Biden administration as well, including the importance of continued close cooperation on ending the COVID-19 pandemic, addressing the threat of climate change, and promoting economic prosperity and international security based on our shared democratic values.
In addition, I expect the leaders will want to discuss their support for the Western Balkans, which is a priority region in Europe for both the United States and for Germany, and how we can continue to promote stability in the region, as well as continue to make progress on the further European integration of the Western Balkans; as well as our collective response to undemocratic moves by China and continued efforts within the transatlantic relationship, including in our bilateral relationship, on how we can work together to address China’s nonmarket economic practices and human rights abuses.
And so, just closing thought: The United States and Germany have long worked together to address the world’s most important challenges, and we see the meeting tomorrow as an opportunity to ensure the continuity of close relations between the United States and Germany, to give the two leaders an opportunity to get to know one another personally, and an opportunity for them to discuss all of the pressing global challenges that both of our countries are facing today.
The daily press briefing is scheduled for 1:45 p.m. D.C., time.
The joint-press conference is scheduled for 3:15 p.m. D.C., time.
This is an Open Thread.
