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>> president biden traveled to scranton, pennsylvania, today to highlight his infrastructure proposal. this is just over an hour >> good evening. i'd like to start by saying it's an honor to be with you here today. my nawm is shane and i'm a fourth generation union ironworker. [applause] i was born and raised right here in scranton. not greenridge but west side. [laughter] i'm a proud member of iron

workers local 404 and i've worked on many projects all over the northeast during my 15 years in the trade. i'm a married man and the proud father of two daughters, ages 14 and 2. and a 4-year-old son. i'm invested in my community and i serve as the township auditor in ranson township and i'm a proud member of the st. patrick's association of lackawanna county. president biden's build back better agenda is important for working families just like mine. in pennsylvania and across the country. we work hard for every dollar we earn but some days it feels like the odds are stacked against us. the historic infrastructure investments in the bipartisan infrastructure deal would put food on my family's table for years to come. president biden's broader vision would go further. the build back better act

addresses the rising cost of both childcare and elder care which would help ensure that both my young son, my daughters, and my aging parents are taken care of with dignity, grace, and understanding. my wife is going to school for nursing. but with three kids and both of us working it's tough to find enough hours in the day. joe biden's american rescue plan gave us and expanded child tax credit which helps us to cover the costs of two weeks of child care every single month. this has given my wife the flexibility to devote more time to her studies. president biden's build back better act would extend the child tax credit and invest more in child care, helping my family and families just like mine. with this help, my wife and others like her will be able to pursue their passion for helping

others and fill a role in health care that our community desperately needs right now. my wife and i talked about the possibility of having more children one day. but like millions of americans, i only get paid for the days i lace my boots up and go to work. i have zero paid time off for the birth of a new child. but the paid family leave called for in the build back better act would give my wife and i the ability to plan for another child with less worrying about making ends meet. we would be able to focus on what truly matters, our family. without further ado, it is my honor and my privilege to introduce to all of you the president of the united states of america, joe biden. [applause] pres. biden: hello, hello,

hello. it's good to be home. [cheers and applause] thank you all. please be seated. i just want you to know we have a tradition in the biden-finnegan family, when you see a relative you go see them first. these are my relatives in the front row here. spent an awful lot of time across from st. paul's church, at my uncle jack's house. his daughters are here and he was -- he taught up at the u and i just want you to know that amtrak is here, athey can tell you, you should name half the line after me. i am the most railroad guy you're ever going to meet. 2,100,000 miles on amtrak. hear me now? not a joke. what happened was -- when you

are a president or vice president, they keep meticulous mileage of when you fly in aircraft. so about, i guess it was seven years in to my tenure as vice president, and i used to always like to take amtrak home on friday. i tried to go home and see my mom who was living with us at the time after my dad passed, i tried to get home. the secret service were wonderful, they're the best in the world, they never liked me taking amtrak because it stops too often and too many people can get on and you don't know -- but i -- it turned out i was about number 3 in seniority on the road at the time. in terms of actual time on the road. and a lot of the folks in amtrak became my family. not a joke. i commuted every single day for

36 years as vice president of the united states after my wife and daughter were killed i went home to see my family and never stopped going and doing that. so angelo negri, ang came up to me one day when they just had announced i had flown one million something, x number of mienls air force aircraft. ang comes up, i'm getting in the car, he go, joey baby, what are you -- i thought the secret service were going to shoot him, i'm like, no, no, he's good, he's good. he said, i just read. big deal. big deal. whatever it was, 1,200,000 miles, air force, you know how many miles you did amtrak? i said no, i don't have any idea, pal. he said let me tell you, we were at the retirement dinner and we added it up. you averaged 121 days a year. 121 days a year, 36 year, plus

as vice president uric traveled over two million miles. i don't want to hear any more about the air force. but in the build back better plan, i got more money for passenger rail than the entire amtrak system cost to begin with. we're going to change the nation in a big way. change. i want to thank you for the introduction, i really do. madam mayor paige -- you've done a great job. i really mean it. when i got elected, after i checked on what the margin was in the state of delaware i called up here. she had won that year too. and i found out that i won every precinct in scranton and i looked up and said mom, i did it. i did it. look. it's great to be here. it's great to be here in

pennsylvania with a very close friend, become a very close friend and great governor, governor wolf. good to see you. matt, thank you for the passport to let me back into the district. and you know, we -- it's interesting. i grew up not very far from bobby, excuse me, the senator where he grew up. about a total of if you add it up about phi blocks, six blocks. and his dad and i were about 18 years apart and we're 17 years apart so it's like a continuum gong on here. i want you to know, we went to the same schools. same parish. just a few years apart. give or take a few years. scranton is where i played shortstop with the little league in the first year it was put up, my dad helped build the field down there spent a lot of time

buying penny candy and hank's hoagies on woodlawn watching movies on the weekend trying to re-enact all they did when you watch those movies. i think i was told, i don't know if it's true, i was the only kid in my year that was able to walk across the pipe that was just -- if you fell in the lockie you were in trouble. any rate. [laughter] that's right. look, no matter how long you live here in scranton, it's a place that climbs into your heart and it never really leaves you. that's god's truth. you know, like that old saying go, you can take the boy out of scranton, but you can't take scranton out of the boy. there's something special about it. i believe home is where your character is etched. i really mean that. some of you heard me say this before. it's where your view of the world begins, where it began and

takes ship. that happened to me at 2446 washington avenue. we used to come back after 10:30 mass at st. paul's, st. clair's wasn't built until i move. at st. paul's. my grandfather would hold court. back in those days, all the men had breakfast in the kitchen. my mother was one of five children, four brothers, one lost in world war ii. a guy who was a chief political reporter at the newspaper, tommy phillips, who was -- lived a street behind us, was a good friend of my grandfather's. all the women went in the dining room on the lace table cloth and had tea. the men would have a big breakfast. and if you were a kid, a young boy, you could sort of wander around the table. you can never sit at the table. and so i used to every once in a while walk in and sort of wander around. i'd stand by my grandpop.

i put my hand on his shoulder and i -- they'd talk. they talk about anything from sports and politics and that's where i learned an awful lot at that kitchen table. i learned from my grandpop that money doesn't determine your worth. i learned, he told me, and that's not a joke, thos of -- those of you who know me know it to be true. learned that no one in the world is more worthy than you, joe, everyone is your equal my mom would remind me, she said joey, remember, you're defined by your courage and you're redeemed by your loyalty. you're defined by your courage and redeemed by your loyalty. my dad, when things got tough in scranton after the war, when there wasn't any working my dad didn't work in the coal mines. my great grandfather was a mining engineer but my dad was in sales and worked for a

trucking company. things got slow in scranton so we moved, i remember the day he came, i think the longest walk a parent can make is up a short flight of stairs to tell a kid you can't li here anymore. you can't because dad doesn't have a job, mom doesn't have a job. my dad had moved fromwomennington, delaware, to scranton when he was a junior in high school. he went to st. thomas, not the prep, but it was called st. thomas in those days. i remember him walking up and into the bedroom and saying honey, i'm going to -- dad's going to have to move. but -- it's probably going to take about a year, it's only like 155 miles, i thought that was like 600 miles away. i'll come home every weekend. and when i get enough i'll bring you and mom and everyone down to wilmington. you're going to like it. and i thought that was like, you know, know an awful lot of parents who left scranton in those days and moved away, had

to move away. and you know, i gained so much respect for my father as i got older. because i thought about how muce hurt him and the pride it took for him to walk into my grandfather's pantry and say, ambrose can i leave jean and the kids with you, i promise i'll make it up to you. i'll be back every weekend but i'll make it up to you. that's a hard thing for a proud man or woman to do. when i moved down to delaware, my dad would say, and all my friends know this, you've heard him say it, joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. it's about your dignity. it's about respect. it's about being able to look your kid in the eye and say honey it's going to be ok. and think about it. think about what it is. it means a lot more than just whether you get a paycheck. it defines who you are.

i learned that at the kitchen table in scranton, a place where you take care of one another my mother, i used to stutter badly when i was a kid. if tommy bell and all my other friends were here, at st. paul's my nickname was black bird, b-b-b-b-blackbird, it wasn't meant as a compliment. you could beat me but i'd hurt you. you think i'm kidding but i'm do not but i was fortunate because the people i was surrounded by, our neighbors in scranton as well, people stuck up for you. stuck up for one another. and my mother used to say, and i never quite understood, remember, joey, look at me, you're a biden. like i'm a dupont or something. i swear to god. you're a biden. nobody is better than you.

and everybody is equal to you. nobody. the point i'm making is, the truth is, scranton isn't my home because of the memories it gave me. it's my home because of the values it gave me. so when i ran for president i came back to scranton. i came back to scranton. i started here in scranton. i resolved to bring scranton values to bear, to make a fundamental shift in how our economy works for working people. to build the economy from the ground up and the middle out, not from the top down. i have never known a time when the middle class has done well that the the wealthy haven't done very, very well. i'm here to talk about what's fundamentally at stake right now for our families and our country. for most of the 20th century we led the world by a significant margin because we invested in our people. we invested in ourselves. not only in our roads and highways and bridges but in our people and our families. we didn't just build and interstate highway system. we built a highway to the sky.

to outer space. we were also, we invested to win the space race. and we won. we're also among the first to provide access to free education begin back in the late 1800's, early 1900's. we invested in our children. does anybody think today if we were making that decision for the first time we'd say 12 years is enough in the 21st century in 12 years is enough? it's do not back then they did. it's the reason why we leapt ahead the rest of the world. not a joke. became among the best educated countries in the world. but somewhere along the way, we stopped investing in ourselves. america is still the largest economy in the world. still have the most productive workers in the world. most innovative minds. but we risk losing our edge as a nation. our infrastructure used to be the best in the world, not a joke, the best in the world. today according to the world economic forum we rank 13th in the world in terms of infrastructure.

our roads, bridges, highways, the whole works. 13th in the world. we used to lead the world in educational achievement. today thing or gnuization for economic cooperation and development in europe ranks america 35 out of 37 major countries when it comes to investing in early childhood education. and talk about an equalizer. the greatest equalizer in the world, great universities have done studies the last 15 years. you give a kid, no matter what the kid's background from a broken home, from a home where mom or dad didn't doe to school, and the them in school in third grade, school not day care, you increase by 56% that they'll complete 12 years of school and build confidence. what's education all about? it's about building confidence. in a child. it's about giving them the tools to do something. we can't be competitive in the 21st century economy if we continue to slide the way we

have. that's why i resolved that we once again have to build america from the with the tom up and the middle out, not the top down. i'm a capitalist. i think if you can be a millionaire or billionaire fine just do your fair share. just do your fair share. you know. trickle down economics has always failed. it hadn't built this country. you know who built this country. like the young man who just introduced me. union people. people who can make a decent hard wage, build a country. it's not hyperbole. i mean frit the bottom of my heart. that's why i propose two critical pieces of legislation that are being debated back this washington. there are some really smart national press with me today and they have understandably believed that there's no possibility of my getting this done. this has been declared dead on arrival from the moment i introduced it. but i think we're going to surprise them. because i think people are beginning to figure out what's at stake.

when i use the phrase build back better it's being used internationally now. i got the g-7, the largest countries in the world, agree to have a build back better world. we're going to invest and we're going to build around the world. democracies and ability so the rest of the countries don't fall prey to those like belt road initiative by china and other initiatives, i'll do something for you if you give me, if you give me. folks look. these bills are not about left versus right. or about moderate versus progressive. or anything that pits one american against another. these bills are about competitiveness versus complacency. they're about expanding opportunity, not having opportunity denied. they're about leading the world and continuing to let the world pass us by. by the way, they will not increase one single penny of the deficit. they are fully paid for.

and all wall street points out they will grow employment by tens of thousands of people. tens of thousands of people. 17 nobel laureates spontaneousls in the economy, sent me a letter three weeks ago saying it will also reduce, not increase, inflation. that's what these initiatives are all about. first the infrastructure bill. when i say infrastructure back home people look at me like, what the hell are you talking about, joe? they know infrastructure generically. it's about rebuilding the arteries of our economy. that's what it's about. across the country right now there are 45,000 bridges according to the society of engineers, 45,000, a significant portion ready to fall. fall. fall into the water, into the gap they cover. there are 173 miles of roads in

poor conditions that have to be build up. including more than 3,300 bridges and over 7,500 miles of highways here in the state of pennsylvania that need to be repaired. and built. increase timing and commerce. we're going to put hard working meshes on the job to bring our infrastructure up to speed. good union jobs. not $7 an hour or $15 an hour but prevailing wage. wage you can raise your family on. you can look at your family with pride. jobs that can't be outsourced. jobs replacing lead water pipes like you have here in the scranton area. kids getting brain damage because of the ingeston of lead. clean water. all across america. we're going to replace every single lead pipe in the nation. again, creating jobs but doing more than that. increasing the health and well being of our children.

44,000 schools are in a position where they have lead pipes. you send your kid to the water fountain, you got to wonder about it. jobs laying thousands of miles of transmission lines and building a modern energy grid. folks, we're in situation now where you see what's happening. aye flown all over this country since being elected, you realize more of our land has been burned to the ground, burned to the ground, in the west and the northwest than the entire state of new jersey. every single square mile of new jersey. more has been burned down this year, this year, in the west because of climate change and because of electric utilities failing. wires falling. we know if we can put these wires underground, we increase exponentially the service but it costs a lot of money. we have to do it. we know that if we in fact allow

people to be able to store, we have this incredible energy, we have -- this is one of the largest solar fields in america. it's in the southwest. guess what? you can transmit all that energy enough to really light up half the state of nevada, but how do you transmit it? do we have lines to put it over? do we have capacity to do that? we have the epg nearing capacity, do we have the will to do it? imagine what that does. you realize we had $90 billion in los this calendar year because of natural disasters. $90 billion. jobs. making sure there's a high speed internet. afordable and available anywhere. everywhere in america including for nearly one in six families who go without internet.

you saw what's happened when we've had this covid. try teaching from home. how many people just see out in mcdonald's parking lots with their kids in their cars because they get access to the internet to be able to help the kid in school. what are we doing? this is the united states of america, damnit. what are we doing? both these bills are going to help us meet the moment on the climate crisis in a way that creates good jobs, makes us more economically competitive. $66 billion in passenger rail and freight rail. why do i talk about passenger rail and particularly high speed rail? you realize the chinese are building another high speed rail line that will go up to 300 miles per hour. you say what difference does that make, biden? guess what. if you can get on a train and go from here to washington faster than you can in an automobile you take the train.

you take the train. we'll literally take millions of automobiles off the road, off the road, saving tens of millions of barrels of oil, dealing with cleaning up the air this is not hyperbole,st it's a fact. these are facts. right now, when i went tout silicon valley, they showed, we're in situation where if you put solar panels on your roof, guess what, when the sun is not shining, you're in trouble. except they have now battery technology, you can have batteries in your basement about the size of the width of this podium and about that thick that keep you going for seven days. so what do we have in this legislation? $39 million to modernize american transit. i remember riding the troll lee, i lived at the end of the line

three block, the end of the line. beyond the end of the line were the dump. maloney field was on the right. the little league baseball field i played on was down at the bottom of the hill. the point is, it worked. most people live in cities. the vast majority of people now, working people, live in cities. their jobs are out of town. no longer in town. no longer in town. but 65% do not own an automobile. they live in a block or hispanic neighborhood or a poor neighborhood. and all the time they waste trying to get to work. look, more than $7 billion to build out the national network of electric vehicle charges stations. the way my grandpop god up here, grandpop biden who died at mercy hospital of an aneurysm two months before i was born, was

with the oil company. he was up here opening up gas stations. that's how he got here. this was 1942, late 1942. guess what. the same thing happens. we build these charging stations, what happens in communities build up around them. you get everything from the figurative mcdonald's or dunkin' donuts to the drugstore. $21 billion for environmental cleanup and remediation. look, it means putting people to work in good jobs prerk vailing wages, capping hundreds of thousands of abandoned wells in southeastern pennsylvania and ohio. get the same salary that you paid the mineworker to dig the whale. they've got to be cap. we have thousands of them, need to be capped. in addition to that, we have methane leaks all over. you understand in pennsylvania about. that but guess what. increases the health of the community, provides good-paying jobs. my plan also makes historic

investment in clean energy. clean tax credit for people who co-things like winterize their homes, install solar panels, install green energy product. it's real. i promise you. i won't be around to see it but i promise you. your kids are going to see a time when they're not in fact generating any energy from the homes here in scranton other than renewable energy. not a joke. and by the way, whun of the things that -- the president put me in charge of, i want to be clear here. president obama put me in charge of when i was vice president, i was able to invest in that lex i put together, we put together. we brought down the price of solar and wind cheaper than coal and cheaper than oil. on a b.t.u. basis. it's cheaper.

coal built this town, this part of the country. but we got to provide over avenues for people to make the same kind of living they used to be able to make. look, all told, i said this project will save literally hundreds of millions of barrels of oil annually. folks in pennsylvania know the cost of inaction when it comes to climate change. extreme weather has cost this state $10 billion other the last decade and nationally as i said extreme weather conditions cost $99 billion last year. i flew over all this territory in helicopters, the marine one, not a joke. see it. see reservoirs that are down 60, # 0 felt. concern about the colorado river, whether or not we're going to be able to keep things moving no a joke. it's real. this is serious stuff. so you know, it's not going to ease up on its own. we have to invest in our resilience. building roads higher.

we can build back better. we're the only country in the world historically that's gone through a crisis and come out the other end better than before the crisis hit. that's who we are as americans. in the a joke. think about it, those of you who teach history. think about it. we come out better than it was before. because we don't give up. we invest. we trust our instincts. so that's what i'm talking about. we need more strong ler levees, stronger power grids. more durable. able to withstand increasing ferocity and duration of extreme weather. used to be you'd build a road back the same as it was before, but you can't build back to the same standard. the weather has already changed.

if we dent do something before we reach 1.5 degrees celsius we're in trouble. aye -- we haven't passed a major infrastructure bill for decades in this country. last four years you hear every month, infrastructure month. didn't do a single damn thing. nothing. i mean nothing. for four years. we can't afford to sit while other countries pass us by. we're going to breathe new life into the economy and our work force. here's the deal. these jobs will create -- that we're going to create for people who are too often left out and left behind. the vast majority of the jobs in my infrastrurture bill don't require a four-year degree. 98% don't require a four-year degree. guess what, though? it's the element of blue collar, blue collar, middle class, renewable. real serious work.

needs to get done. folks, it isn't enough just to invest in our physical infrastructure. we need to invest in our people. which we always did. we invested in our people. that's why the second bill, the so-called build back better plan. here's what it does. it takes education, i said, when america made 12 year of public education standard a century ago it gave us the best educated, best prepared work force in the world. and you saw what happened. think of what would happen after world war i, how america moved because we were the best educated overall. country in the world. and we led the 20th century. as i said earlier, we know 12 years is not enough any longer to compete in the 21st century. study after study shows they continue to learn. you know the statistics, some of your teachers and husbands used

to talk to me about it, if you come from a home where the mom or dad have books on the shelf, on the coffee table and and you come from a home where mom of dad can't read or has a sixth grade education or has a little difficulty. the child coming from the middle class home will have heard a million more words spoken, not different words, spoken, spoken, than the child coming from a middle class home. that's because look, what do you all know? you all know with your children or grandchildren. you start talking to them in the criedle. they're the people who sit at the dinner table and still talk. they're engaged. so many homes, mothers and fathers don't have the capacity. right now what are we doing? we're lagging behind. today only about half of the 3 and 4-year-olds in america are

enrolled in pre-k education. germany, latvia, their numbers over 90%. it's not just early education. according to one study we rank 12th among advanced studies when it comes to percentage of our young people who attained any sort of posthigh school degree. 12th in the world. the build back better plan gets us back on track. we'll make two years of high quality, preschool available to every child in america. every child. we're going to make -- [applause] we're going to make investments in education beyond high school. that includes increasing pell grants which nearly 200,000 students in pennsylvania arely on to attend college. we're going to increase it by $500 so it becomes $1, #00. the bill invests in our work force providing much-needed breathing room.

i remember my dad, we moved to wilmington, pienlly after four years dad could buy a house. we lied in a development, a lovely area, suburban area, but it was a three-bedroom split level home and we had four kids and my grandpop who lived with us. or another relative for all those years we lied there. -- live thrsmed my bed -- my headboard, didn't have a headboard, but my head was up against the wall and my dad and mom's bed was up against the wall. it was great for us having grandpops and relatives there. i don't know how my parents did it. i i remember one night, i'm serious, i was in high school. dad said -- i could feel my dad was restless. i could feel it. i asked the next morninger i asked my mom, what's the mat we are dad, mom? she said he got bad news. the company said they're no longer going to pay for health insurance. guess what? my dad said everybody is

entitled, all we're looking for is just a little breathing room. just a little bit of extra room. a little breathing room. how can we compete in a world of millions of american parents, especially mom, can't gin the work force because they can't afford child care or elder care or they have to stay home? i heard my colleagues speaking before i did here in pennsylvania, the average annual cost of child care for your toddler is $11,400. high for the other places. -- higher in other places. average two-parent family two young kids, spends 22% of their income for child care every year. i was single dad for five years. i got elected to the senate. i got a phone call before i got sworn in when i was hiring my staff saying my wife and daughter had just been killed and my two boys had just been injured. they were hospitalized far long time. that's why i eventually started

commuting. i continued to commute. i could no more afford and i was making a lot of money then. granted, i was listed for 36 years the poorest man in congress but i was making $42,000 a year. i didn't think my job was to make money when i was in congress. but it's not a joke. i could no more afford child care than to fly. but fortunately i had a hell of a family. those values i talked about. my sister and her husband, after a little bit, they gave up their home. i came home one fight and they moved into my home to help me raise my kids. five years later, no man deserves one great love, let alone two. five years later, i met and married jill, i came home after the wedding they'd moved out my brother, jimmy, best friend, my mother, they all helped me take care of my kids. i couldn't have done it. i understand. how in god's name do people make

it? if you look at the world of advanced economics and those advanced -- those with advanced economies, the countries invest an average of -- each of those countries invest an average of $14,000 per year in child -- state-sponsored child toddler care. america invests $500. 28 times less than our competitors. 30 years ago we ranked seventh in the world among advanced economies in the share of women in the work force. today in america we rank 23rd. and women are becoming not -- becoming, not a joke, better educated than men. if you look at and i do about five college commencements a year, fur of those five, the valedictorian out of those classes for the last 10 years has been a woman. and there's -- read the data now. we're worried about the number

of men attending college. once again, our competitors are investing. we're standing still. my build back better plan is designed to get us moving again. look, it's going to cost the cost of child care for families in pennsylvania in half. no middle income family will pay more than 7% of their income for child care under my proposal. 7%. it'll help people get back to work in a work force and make ends meet. it will also extend the historic middle class tax cut for parents. i have -- i'm going to say something self-serving but i got on pretty well in the senate for all those years. a lot of republican friends as well as democratic friends. for real. kind of like bobby, they're friends. we used to travel together a lot. and here's the deal though. you know, what i was able to do, we passed the american rescue plan, first month of my administration, which allowed us

to have all funding for covid and when i start off there were two million people in america that had gotten a vaccine. guess what? we're up to 190 million. that's how we got it paid for. [applause] here's the deal. what it meant was, what it meant was that, you know, right now, there's a whole new attitude out there. how do we not invest? so in that act we passed, we provided far child tax credit. and you heard my introducer speak to it. because we're in such dire straits and able to put in position a tax cut for middle class people. that's what it is. no one wants to cut capital gains for the wealthy, no one has a problem with that. we have over 50 corporations

that don't pay a single solitary penny in taxes. not one cent. and make $40 billion a year. when we talk about a tax cut for middle class people and that's exactly what it is. by what we did, increasing, making the refoundable tax cut. the way it works now if you made enough money to owe more than $4,000 in taxes and you had two kids you've got to deduct it. here's the deal. the fact of the matter is, that if you didn't make that kind of money you didn't get the benefit at all. it wasn't refundable. you didn't get the benefit at all. if you didn't have more than $4,000 in taxes you still paid. it wasn't refundable. you didn't get it back. here's the way we work it. we said all right. temporarily what we're going to do is make sure there's a child care tax credit. if you have one kid under #, you

get $3,600, ifoff un7-17, you get $3,000 a year. upped from $2,000. it's cut child poverty in pennsylvania by 55%. in the nation by 50%. [applause] it's a flat out tax cut for ordinary people. that's what it does. i make no apologies for it. but look folks. there's so many things that we can do to change the way in which we work all of this. i realize i'm going on here but the fact is, there's so much at stake. so much at stake. look. the fact is that most of all what it does is, you know, we have a generation that exists, and many of you are part of that generation, you have a mom or dad that needs some help when they get older and off child that needs some help.

if you're going to be able to be in the work force. and it's hard as hell. hard as hell to make it work. you got to give these folks a little breathing room. the single greatest champion for elder care in the united states of america is this guy right here. bobby casey. not a joke. not a joke. [applause] the way it works right now, to qualify for medicaid after the lower income medicaid, not medicare, medicaid. there are 820,000 seniors, people with -- or people with disabilities, who are on medicaid on a waiting list to get home care which they're entitled to. how many families are living this story? parents get older. they need some help getting around the house. making the meals for themselves. don't want to put them in nursing homes. only -- not only because of the

cost but because of a matter of dignity. they do better, live longer if they can stay in their own home. but you also don't have the time or money to take care of them at home, to do it. so you're just looking for an answer. your parent kans keep living independently. if they hold here a second, one of the things that is important, think about this. in order to get into that nursing home, you've got to sell everything you have. you can't have any private property. you have to empty your bank account. you have to do it all. to move into a nursing home. i'm not saying nursing homes aren't valuable, they are. they're extremely valuable. but that's not where i remember my uncle was moved in with his wife into an assisted living center. he wanted -- the folks who had built the facility, it was a lovely facility in delaware, asked if i'd come and speak on the opening of it. and we're walking out, i said,

isn't this beautiful? she looked at me and she said, she was then 76 years old she said this is for old people, joey. not for me. [laughter] but think about it. for millions of families, this is the most important issue they're facing. it's personal. it's personal. bob casey gets it. bonny fights for something -- bobby fights for something he never gives up if you haven't noticed. here's what we're going to do. we're going to expand service for seniors so fam clains get help from well-paid, well-trained professionals to get their parents help at hope. to cook a meal for them. to help them get around. to put in railings on their home. when my mom lived with me she moved in with me, we finally talked her into doing it. guess what. my sister takes her up, you remember -- you remember talking about this too. takes her up to get her

prescriptions. drives her back. gets out of the house. she was -- there was a little home off of our home. she wouldn't move into -- physically move into the house even though we'd done the whole thing over for her. she's just standing there. and moves and breaks her hip. she didn't trip or anything. broke her hip. guess what? just having a railing, just having a place where she could walk from one home to another. and help them in their own home with the dignity they deserve. quite frankly, what we've found is this is more hop lar -- popular than anything else i'm proposing. when you do this individual polling day tark this is extremely popular. we all feel that obligation to our parents and want them to live with dignity. the american people understand the need. it's a matter of dignity, it's a matter of pride. look. that's what both of these initiatives are all about. they're about more than giving

working families a break, they're about positioning our country to compete for the long haul. economists left, right, and center agree. the investments i'm talking about will create for the next 20 years on average two million additional jobs per year. good-paying jobs. transformative. [applause] we can make these transformation investments and be fiscally responsible. taketake the infrastructure bil. the whole deal, they represent less than one half of 1% of our economic growth each year. and the cost of the build back better bill in terms of adding to taxes is zero. zero. because we are going to pay for it all. in addition to that, half of it is a tax cut. it's not spending money, it is a tax cut for working-class people. it is about time, as i said.

i come from the corporate state of the world. not a joke. more corporations are registered in my state than in any other state of the united states combined. i represented -- for six years. i'm not antibusiness. i'm about pay your fair share. under this proposal, these proposals i'm talking about, i guarantee you that no one making under $400,000 a year will see one single penny and tax go up -- in tax go up, not one. if you notice, the way we pay for infrastructure is by gasoline taxes. i wouldn't allow that. that would tax people making

under $400,000. i'm a man of my word. not one single penny will you pay if you make less than $400,000. [applause] so there's no reason, there's a reason why someone making $400 million a year -- no reason why someone making $400 a year. during this crisis we had with covid, there were a number of billionaires that went up in the tax code. do you know how much money the billionaires made last year collectively? they're not bad guys, i'm not saying that, they made $1 trillion in collective income. $1 trillion. just pay your fair share. you know, if you are a millionaire or billionaire, you have a lower tax rate then a teacher or firefighter, as a percent of

taxes that you pay, lower. 55 of our largest corporations pay zero in income taxes, $40 billion. this needs to change. that is why despite the misinformation, my plans are still overwhelmingly supported by the american people. when families have a little breathing room, america is in a better spot. can they know this is about dignity and respect, building an economy from the autumn up, not from the top down -- bottom, up, not from the top down. let me close with this pivot for too long, working people in this nation, the backbone of the country, have been dealt out. it's time to deal them back and pay what i ran for president -- back in. i ran for president and said it was time to build the backbone of the nation.

by that, i was very precise. the middle class has been the backbone of this nation. i couldn't have been any clearer. that's why i wrote both these bills in the first place. and took them to the people. i campaigned on them. the american people spoke. i have no doubt about what i ran on. both these bills are all i talked about. guess what? 81 million people voted for me. more people voted then any time in american history -- th -- than any time in american history. and their voices deserve to be heard. not ignored. because here's what i know. if we make the investments, there will be no stopping in american and the for century. i have long said, i mean this for every world leader i have known and i have now spoken to over 60 of them, i tell them, it is never, ever --

has never, ever been a good bet to bet against america. never, never. which means it is always a good bet to bet on america. that is what these nations do, they bet on america. it is about believing in the american people. it is about believing. what becomes clear is this -- given half a chance, the american people have never, ever, ever, ever, ever let the country down. just a fighting chance. no guarantee -- just a chance. that's what this is all about. and it does not increase the debt. when you talk about the number, we shouldn't even talk about the numbers -- because it is all paid for, written in the same piece of legislation. when you pass the spending, you're also passing the tax cuts

and the taxes are not going to be increased. scranton, thanks for always treating me so nicely. i really mean it. god bless you all, and may god protect our troops. thank you. [applause] ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer: c-span is your unfiltered view of government. funded by these television companies and more, including buckeye broadband. ♪ buckeye broadband supports

c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. ♪ announcer: on thursday, attorney general merrick garland testifies on the justice department's mission and policies before the house judiciary committee. we are covering it live beginning at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span3, online at c-span.org, or on the new video app, c-span now. announcer: next, the senate foreign relations committee holds a confirmation hearing for several ambassador nominations, nicholas burns to be invested better to china, rahm emmanuel to japan, and jonathan kaplan to be ambassador to singapore. senator bob menendez chaired this hearing.