President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Atlanta next Friday to tout the new $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus package.

Georgia cities and counties are set to receive at least $8.2 billion from the stimulus. Many Georgians will receive checks up to $1,400, along with substantial child tax credits.



Biden signed the legislation Thursday, a day earlier than expected.

Biden said the vast majority of Americans support the rescue package and, at its core, the legislation is aimed at giving the working class a "fighting chance" to recover following the devastating yearlong pandemic. 

“This historic legislation is about rebuilding the backbone of this country,” Biden said.

In his first prime-time White House address later Thursday, he told the nation he believes the country is on track to return to normalcy by the Fourth of July holiday.

"July 4th with your loved ones is the goal," he said.

He added that he would order states to make all adults eligible for vaccination by May 1. Gov. Brian Kemp has said all adult Georgians will become eligible at the beginning of April if the supply exists..

Biden delivered his remarks one year after the World Health Organization first declared the coronavirus crisis a global pandemic. More than 520,000 people in the United States, including over 15,700 in Georgia, have died from COVID-19.

His stop in Atlanta will be significant since Georgia voted for a Democrat for president for the first time since 1992 — and the state flipped control of the U.S. Senate with the historic Democratic victories of new Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff.

"Help is on the way," Warnock tweeted Thursday. "I'll say it again: Thank God for Georgia."

“This is economic stimulus from the bottom up, from the middle out, not from the top down,” Ossoff said Wednesday.

Ossoff wenton to say that it is time for Georgia to expand Medicaid to "make sure no one in this state lacks access to health care because they can’t afford it."

While Democrats have praised the relief package, high-ranking Republican state officials, including Gov. Brian Kemp and House Speaker David Ralston, have objected to a provision in the measure that blocks them from using the federal funds to pay for tax breaks.

“Democrats in Washington and in the White House are not going to tell me, or the Georgia General Assembly, that we can’t cut taxes for hard-working Georgians,” Kemp told reporters Wednesday.

The relief package is coming at a time when Biden is riding high with a new poll showing 62% of Americans approve of how he is handling the pandemic.

Tags: biden  Coronavirus  COVID-19  Georgia  Atlanta  Macon  Savannah  relief package  Public Policy  Georgia