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(MAYFIELD, Ky.) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday surveyed damage in Kentucky he described as “beyond belief” and met with families in neighborhoods ravaged by deadly tornadoes last weekend.

After Biden surveyed the destruction in Mayfield by air and then on the ground, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear later choked up when thanking Biden publicly and introducing him in Dawson Springs, where Biden had stopped and talked to families whose homes were destroyed, including a 12-year-old girl carrying an American flag in a neighborhood where nearly every tree had been uprooted.

Biden opened his remarks by reminding people used to travel to Dawson Springs for the city’s healing waters, but, Biden said, “Now it’s our turn to help the entire town to heal.”

“I intend to do whatever it takes, as long as it takes to support your state and local leaders, and as you recover and rebuild because you will recover and you will rebuild,” Biden said, surrounded by storm damage. “The scope and scale of this destruction is almost beyond belief. When you look around here, it’s almost beyond belief. These tornadoes devoured everything in their path.”

He also offered condolences for those who lost someone and insisted “something good must happen” from the tragedy.

“I met one couple on the way up, said they’re still looking for four of their friends. They don’t know where they are. And those who have lost someone, there’s no words for the pain of losing someone. A lot of us know it.” Biden said.

“Keep the faith,” Biden added. “No one is walking away. We are in this for the long haul.”

Ahead of his remarks, Biden updated a presidential disaster declaration to boost federal disaster funds from 75% to 100% coverage for debris removal and emergency protective measures in Kentucky for a 30-day period.

Earlier, before receiving a briefing from state and local officials in Kentucky “on the impacts of the tornadoes and extreme weather,” according to the White House, Biden vowed all the federal support he can provide to the area, both now and in the months to come.

“Immediately after a disaster is a time when people are really, really moving, and trying to help each other and trying to get things done. But after a month, after six weeks, after two months, people can get themselves to a point where they get fairly depressed about what’s going on, particularly young kids, particularly people who’ve lost somebody. And so I just want you to know, the help that we’re able to offer at the federal level, is not just now,” Biden said.

“I’ve instructed my team to make you all aware of everything that is available from a federal level,” Biden added later on. “And some of it has to do outside of FEMA, outside of Homeland Security, there’s other programs, including education, there’s a whole range of things, but I’m here to listen.”

The president seemed struck by the scale of the damage he saw on his aerial tour.

“As you fly over here, as I’ve done in the past, I’ve not seen this tornado, this much damage from a tornado. You know, you think, but for the grace of God, why was I not 100 yards outside that line? Which makes it so different,” he noted.

Biden was joined for the visit by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, who were on the ground there on Sunday.

At least 88 people have been confirmed dead across five states, 74 in western Kentucky alone, and the death toll could rise “significantly,” Beshear said on Tuesday.

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(WASHINGTON) — Major U.S. airline CEOs were in the hot seat on Capitol Hill Wednesday afternoon, questioned by lawmakers on whether they appropriately spent billions in taxpayer dollars.

The airline industry received a bailout of $54 billion at the height of the pandemic when air travel came to a screeching halt. The goal was to preserve airline jobs, and in return airlines agreed to place limits on executive compensation, eliminate stock buybacks and dividends and not involuntary furlough employees.

Even with the aid, however, airlines said they had no choice but to shrink. They incentivized thousands of employees to accept early retirement offers, buyouts and take unpaid leave.

The moves left them with few resources when air travel came roaring back. During the summer and fall, taxpayers bore the brunt of the cuts — facing daylong cancellations, delays, lines and hold times.

“The return of demand for air travel has been intense,” American CEO Doug Parker wrote in his opening statement. “Like other airlines, we have experienced some operational challenges in recent months, which we have worked to manage as deftly as possible.”

Lawmakers questioned the CEOs on whether airlines have held up their end of the bargain since the goal of the aid was to preserve staff for the eventual travel rebound.

“We end[ed] up with airplanes in the wrong place, people in the wrong place,” Parker said regarding the airline’s mass flight cancellations in October. “So that was the driver of the vast majority of cancellations, but … it gets unfortunately mischaracterized as we don’t have enough people.”

Parker explained they actually have more pilots and flight attendants for shifts than they’ve had in the past, but that employees pre-pandemic were more willing to pick up extra trips, which fueled some of their operational challenges.

Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly admitted to some scheduling mistakes over the past year.

“We just need to make sure that we don’t overschedule the airline relative to the people resources that we have,” he said, “and we’ve made a number of adjustments in that regard.”

And United revealed they are struggling with a regional pilot shortage.

“All of us, particularly our regional partners, simply don’t have enough airplanes to fly,” United CEO Scott Kirby told lawmakers. “We have almost 100 airplanes effectively grounded right now, regional aircraft, because there’s not enough pilots flying, which means we just can’t at the moment fly to all the small communities that we would like to.”

But the executives were in agreement that the road to recovery would have been worse if it weren’t for the payroll support program. PSP saved nearly 400,000 direct passenger airline jobs, according to data from the airlines.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say the program saved the airline industry,” Parker added.

Executives addressed worker shortage concerns by detailing their aggressive hiring initiatives. In all, the major U.S. airlines plan to hire around 30,000 new workers in 2022.

U.S. airlines handled the recent Thanksgiving travel rush without a major hiccup, but they fear the emerging variant could pose another potential setback.

“The omicron variant has created further uncertainty,” Delta COO John Laughter told lawmakers, “and there is no clear consensus on when business and international travel will return.”

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(WASHINGTON) — It’s been hard for Americans to avoid headlines and statements about “tapering” in recent months, as economists and policymakers debate how to best support the economy while the pandemic ebbs in the U.S.

The Federal Reserve said in a policy statement Wednesday that it was greatly reducing its massive bond-buying program, a pandemic-era initiative that flushed cash into financial markets and aimed to buoy the economy during the health crisis.

In the context of current economic policies, this ongoing process of slowing down asset purchases by the Fed is referred to as “tapering.” Simplistically, it refers to the gradual slowdown of the economic stimulus policy that was initiated at the height of the pandemic, when businesses shuttered and unemployment skyrocketed.

“The Fed has been buying up bonds since March of 2020 — bonds and mortgage-backed securities — at a certain rate, and they’re going to slow the rate at which they’re buying up these assets until they’re not buying them anymore,” Megan Greene, global chief economist at the advisory firm Kroll Institute and a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, told ABC News.

On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said during his post Fed-meeting news conference, “We’re basically two meetings away now from from finishing the taper.”

The move to speed up tapering comes as inflation has thrown a new wrench in the Fed’s ability to use its tools to support the economy. Economists have attributed the rising inflation to pandemic-related imbalances as global supply chain snags and labor shortages hobble the ability of supply to keep up with surging demand, pushing up prices.

The Fed’s pandemic policies helped stimulate the economy and consumer demand during the height of the crisis, but the U.S. central bank does not have monetary tools to ease the supply constraints.

“We are phasing out our purchases more rapidly because with elevated inflation pressures and a rapidly strengthening labor market, the economy no longer needs increasing amounts of policy support,” Powell said Wednesday. “In addition, a quicker conclusion of our asset purchases will better position policy to address the full range of plausible economic outcomes.”

In addition to doubling the pace of its tapering, the Fed also signaled that it could hike interest rates up to three times in 2022.

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