President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year (FY) 2021 proposes to significantly reduce the size and reach of the federal bureaucracy by focusing federal activities on constitutional priorities and empowering state and local governments to address other issues closer to the people. Such reforms would have put the budget on track to balance, before exceptional measures to respond to COVID-19 (a disease caused by the novel coronavirus that originated in China) led to a steep and sudden economic decline and a massive increase in deficits.
WATCH: President Biden responds to the Derek Chauvin verdictNation Updated on Apr 20, 2021 6:05 PM EDT Published on Apr 20, 2021 5:23 PM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) President Joe Biden said Tuesday the conviction of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin in the killing of George Floyd “can be a giant step forward” for the nation in the fight against systemic racism. But he declared that “it’s not enough.”
Watch President Biden’s remarks in the video player above.
Biden spoke from the White House hours after the verdict alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, with the pair saying the country’s work is far from finished with the verdict.
Biden and Harris called on Congress to act swiftly to address policing reform, including by approving a bill named for Floyd, who died with his neck under Chauvin’s knee last May. Beyond that, the president said, the entire country must confront hatred to “change hearts and minds as well as laws and policies.”
“‘I can’t breathe.’ Those were George Floyd’s last words,” Biden said. “We can’t let those words die with him. We have to keep hearing those words. We must not turn away. We can’t turn away.”
Harris, the first Black woman to serve as vice president, said racism was keeping the country from fulfilling its founding promise of “liberty and justice for all.”