President Biden, saying “help is here, and hope is here, in real and tangible ways,” kicked off a week of high-level administration efforts to tout the benefits of his $1.9-trillion COVID-19 relief package as he seeks maximum political benefit from his first major legislative victory.

Do the push for vaccinations and the Covid relief bill give you hope? Or something else? Share in the comments below . . .

“In the next 10 days, we’ll reach two goals — two giant goals,” Biden said during brief White House remarks Monday: “100 million shots in people’s arms … and 100 million checks in people’s pockets.” . . .

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With “shots in arms and money in pockets,” as he put it, Biden is hoping not only for partisan advantage but, more broadly, to restore Americans’ trust in their government. That’s a theme the president is expected to emphasize as he, Vice President Kamala Harris, First Lady Jill Biden and senior administration officials hit the road this week, visiting politically critical states in what amounts to the administration’s first sustained barnstorming tour since the inauguration. ..  .

“We’re all in it together,” Harris told a customer at the Las Vegas restaurant, where a sign outside said, “No shirt, no shoes, no masks, no tacos.”

Later, at a culinary academy, she said the relief bill illustrated what “is supposed to be the job of your government, which is when you’re suffering, when you need a helping hand, when you need a little assistance to get over a moment of crisis you didn’t create — that’s when leaders are supposed to kick in to say, ‘I’m here. I see you, and I will help you.’”

Before taking office, Biden had set the goal of achieving 100 million vaccinations within his administration’s first 100 days — a mark that now appears all but certain to be hit shortly after his 60th day as president.

Americans received roughly 3.2 million shots on Saturday and 2.7 million on Sunday, according to Andy Slavitt, the White House senior advisor for the COVID-19 response, who briefed reporters a few hours before Biden spoke. About 30% of American adults and nearly two-thirds of those older than 65 have received at least one shot. . . .

The Philadelphia suburbs, where the president is scheduled to be on Tuesday, and Atlanta, where the two are scheduled to hold a joint event on Friday, are areas that helped secure the Democrats’ victory in November and remain critical for their hopes of maintaining control of Congress in the midterm elections next year. While those contests remain more than a year and a half away, the COVID-19 package has given the White House an early opportunity to begin cementing voters’ loyalty.

Beyond the immediate political goals, Biden has said several times recently that he sees the possibility of a broader change in American attitudes toward government, reversing the decades-long decline in trust that has dominated politics since Ronald Reagan won in 1980.

“We have to prove to the American people that their government can deliver for them,” Biden said. . . .

Biden has said that he believes Obama didn’t do enough to sell Americans on the benefits of the 2009 stimulus law. He’s determined not to repeat that.

In touting the new law’s benefits, however, Biden has several advantages that Obama lacked, which together put a stiff wind at his back: The law starts out with widespread popularity, roughly 70% support in several recent polls. It comes as the economy has already started to show signs of recovery, with unemployment dropping. . . .

Leading economists predict rapid economic growth later this year, with some Wall Street firms forecasting growth rates in excess of 6%, and sharp declines in unemployment. . . .

As Biden spoke Monday, the House Republican leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, led a delegation of GOP lawmakers at the southern border, seeking to highlight the surge in teenagers and other children, primarily from Central America, seeking to cross into the U.S. and claim asylum.

The increasing number of child migrants has rapidly become one of the new administration’s biggest challenges. Officials insist they are applying a “more humane” policy at the border than the Trump administration deployed, but they acknowledge that smugglers have used reports of new, more lenient approaches to convince some would-be migrants that now is the time to try to get into the United States.

McCarthy said the migrant surge, which he referred to as a crisis, was “created by the presidential policies of this new administration.” Biden should be traveling to the border, not to Pennsylvania, he told reporters at the border.

Biden has largely avoided talking about the border problem in public, leaving that to subordinates. Instead, as he did through much of the fall campaign, he has kept his public remarks focused on the pandemic and his relief efforts — demonstrating a self-discipline often lacking earlier in his career, when his garrulous nature could lead him to depart from his script. . . .

In Iowa, for example, a state that former President Trump carried in 2020, a new Des Moines Register poll shows residents closely divided over Biden’s overall performance in office — 47% in favor and 44% opposed. On his handling of the pandemic, however, Biden’s support grew to 57%-37%.

On COVID-19, “a sizable proportion of Republicans are comfortable saying they approve,” pollster J. Ann Selzer said. . . .

“It’s going to be popular,” Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg said. She added that after the last year, in which many Americans believed the Trump administration lacked any coherent strategy to deal with the coronavirus and its impact, voters will respond to “the reassurance that there’s a plan and there’s a timeline.”

Do the push for vaccinations and the Covid relief bill give you hope? Or something else? Share in the comments below . . .

(Excerpt from The Los Angeles Times. Article by DAVID LAUTER, CHRIS MEGERIAN. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)