Administration of Joseph R. Biden, Jr., 2021

April 9, 2021

Death of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, of the United Kingdom

Well, first of all, Jill and I, and the entire administration, send our condolences to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on the loss of Prince Philip. He was a heck of a guy. Heâyou know, he wasâin his lifetime of service to the United Kingdom and the whole Commonwealth was visible to everybody for a long, long time, and his bravery serving in World War II, as well as his being a champion of the environment, as well as the charityâthe charitable things he set up.

So we really do express our condolences for an extraordinary life that was led by the Prince.

And itâI think he's going to be missed, particularly in the United Kingdom. Ninety-nine years old, and he never slowed down at all, andâwhich I admire the devil out of.

Fiscal Year 2022 Budget Guidance

And today we're meeting onâwe're having an economic briefing here with the team. I sent to Congress my funding priorities for the appropriations process, including two key public health initiatives that I'm pushing.

The first isâlike DARPA in the Defense Department, which was designed to develop, and has developed, breakthroughs to protect us and enhance our physical safetyâI'm proposing a

$6.5 billion appropriation for what we call "ARPAâH," which is focused on going toâfocused on health issues.

This is a pioneering breakthrough that we hope we can detect and treat and prevent diseases like Alzheimer's and diabetes and give us a chance to end cancer as we know it, because we'll focus exclusively on those items.

And secondly, I'm proposing a historic funding increase of 50 percent up toâof $4 billion to end the opioid crisis, which still ravages the country and has taken so many lives over the last 2 years; resources both to the States and to Tribes for treatment, as well as prevention.

That also includes the single largest funding increase ever for title I schoolsâfor disadvantaged schoolsâto lift up the millions of children in low-income families. And it will put them in a position where all the data isâwe'veâI've talked a lot about thisâthe data shows that it puts a child from a household that is a lower income household in a position, if they start schoolânot daycare, but schoolâat 3 and 4 years old, there's overwhelming evidence that they are able to compete all the way through high school and beyond.

And so it doubles the funding as well for VAWA services, including resources to end the rape-kit backlog. We've been working on this for a long, long time, and we still have a backlog on the rape kit. And the point is: A significant number of women who have been rapedâand the person has not been found or convicted is because they're sitting in jail. The average rapist rapes about six times.

And so, out there, we'reâwe want to make sure we go through this backlog and find out, to bring some certitude toâfor the woman who is saying: "No, no, it was true. That's the man. He did it." And it changes the whole perspectiveâall the hearings we held on that.

And also thereâit makes major investments in the fight against climate change.

And there's issues that are personal to millions of Americans in the area of VAWA, because I get that asked, and we get spoken to by everyone from mayors and Governors, local officials of both parties.

So I look forward to working with Congress to advance these and other priorities. I think we're going to be able to getâI'm hoping we will have some bipartisan support across the board. I've already spoken to some of my Republican colleagues about dealing with the infrastructure legislation we have up there, as well as other budget items. So we're going to work on seeing if we can get some bipartisan support across the board here.

But that's what we're about to do now. We're going to talk about our economic priorities, and we'll get the brief from the team here. But thank you all for coming.

NOTE: The President spoke at 2:25 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White House. Participating in the meeting were Vice President Kamala D. Harris; Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen; Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Cecilia E. Rouse; Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget Shalanda Young; Director of the National Economic Council Brian C. Deese; Chief Economic Adviser to the Vice President Michael Pyle; and White House Chief of Staff Ronald A. Klain.

Categories: Addresses and Remarks : Economic advisers, meeting with President. Locations: Washington, DC.

Names: Elizabeth II, Queen; Philip, Prince.

Subjects: Budget, Federal : Fiscal year 2022 budget; Congress : Bipartisanship; Deaths : Philip, Prince, Duke of Edinburgh, United Kingdom; Drug abuse and trafficking : Opioid epidemic, efforts to combat; Economy, national : Strengthening efforts; Education : Early childhood learning and preschool programs; Education : Standards and school accountability; Environment : Climate change; Health and medical care : Research and development; Law enforcement and crime : Gender-based violence; Law enforcement and crime : Sexual assault; United Kingdom : Duke of Edinburgh, death; United Kingdom : Queen.

DCPD Number: DCPD202100299.