Representative Malinowski Statement on President Biden’s Address to a Joint Session of Congress

OPINION

President Biden’s speech tonight highlighted how far we have come as a nation since his inauguration just 99 days ago — from last in the world to first in fighting COVID, from beating back an insurrection to building back our economy with 21st Century infrastructure.

My guest for this virtual presidential address, Mark Jakuboski, welcomed me at his Hillsborough restaurant, Old Man Rafferty’s, where we watched the speech together with a group of constituents. Like so many other restaurant owners, Mark was forced to close his business at the start of the pandemic, and he shared with me what a difficult time that was. Mark received two loans under the Paycheck Protection Program, which he used to keep his employees on payroll, to hire new staff, and to invest in his outdoor dining space. I’m grateful to him and his team for sharing their story and for their perseverance.

This evening President Biden focused on uplifting stories like Mark’s, and on how we will move our country forward, and that starts with the American Jobs Plan. We have a once in a generation opportunity to rebuild America — our roads and railroads, bridges, tunnels, ports, water pipes, power lines, broadband connections — and to do it in a way that allows America, not China or any other country, to lead the world in transitioning to clean energy.

What President Biden outlined tonight will create millions of jobs across America and will be great for New Jersey, cutting our balance of payments gap with the federal government in half. After years of resistance from the previous administration, we will finally move forward on the Gateway Tunnel. We will give our hard working citizens more affordable health care, better child care options, and help in caring for our elders, freeing us to be more productive. We will also tackle head on some of the most pressing issues facing our country: our broken immigration system, the epidemic of gun violence, and addressing systemic inequality in our justice system.

I hope Republicans will work with us to achieve these goals, which are overwhelmingly popular and bipartisan with the American people, and I’m willing to take on board their ideas so long as the central goals of the plan are preserved. As President Biden outlined this evening, we want to move forward in a fiscally responsible way, paying for investments in our infrastructure and workforce by making sure that corporations like Amazon and FedEx are actually paying federal taxes, and closing loopholes that enable corporations and the wealthy to use foreign tax shelters to avoid paying their fair share. As I have made clear before, any changes to individual taxes must also restore SALT deductions for my middle class constituents.

This is the agenda that New Jerseyans voted for in 2020. I look forward to working with President Biden to make it real.”