Hello and welcome to the 538 Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Drouk. As we discussed earlier

this week, House Democrats plan on passing a $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan by the

end of the week. Maybe they've passed it, actually, by the time you're listening to this.

Next, the bill will go to the Senate, potentially be amended, then potentially back to the House,

but eventually it will likely be sent to President Biden's desk by mid-March. On Monday, we talked

about some of the political considerations Democrats and Republicans are making with regards to the plan.

And today, we want to get into the details of what is in the plan and why. And to do that,

we're going to go straight to the source. The White House, here with me is Heather Boucher,

member of President Biden's Council of Economic Advisors. Welcome to the show, Heather.

Thank you, Galen. It's a pleasure to be here today.

And so to explain to listeners exactly what your role is, according to the White House website,

the Council of Economic Advisors was established by Congress in 1946 and advises the president on

economic policy based on data, research, and evidence. Those are three things that we also

really like here at 538. So please feel free to get wonky as you see fit. To kick things off,

what are the biggest challenges facing the economy right now as you see them?

Well, now, so the biggest challenge continues to remain the pandemic. We have to continue to

wrap our arms around this, get it under control. That means getting those vaccines out.

To everyone is as fast as possible and it means in the meantime, making sure that people have the

protected gear, the testing, all the things they need so that businesses can open safely,

schools can open safely, and the like. So that is the first thing because we have seen over 2020

that if you do not have that under control, then the economy can't function as usual.

And so while we are doing that, the second most important thing for the economy is to make sure that

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