President Biden and his top economic aides brushed aside criticism from Republicans on Friday about the administration’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package and vowed to forge ahead with the proposal, saying the bill was critical for a flagging economic recovery and overwhelmingly popular with voters, the New York Times reported. The comments came as Biden was briefed by aides on the need for more fiscal help and the state of the economy, and as new analysis from the Brookings Institution suggested the Biden proposal, if enacted, would vault the economy above its prepandemic path by the second half of this year. A team of top economic officials, including Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, met with Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in the Oval Office on Friday to underscore the challenges facing an economy that recorded decelerating growth at the end of last year. They were joined by Brian Deese, the director of the National Economic Council, and Jared Bernstein and Heather Boushey of the Council of Economic Advisers. “The price of doing nothing is much higher than the price of doing something and doing something big,” Yellen said before the briefing. “We need to act now. The benefits of acting now and acting big will far outweigh the costs in the long run.”
