PENNSYLVANIA — Yesterday, President Joe Biden returned to his hometown for the first time as Commander-in-Chief, highlighting his Build Back Better agenda which will create 2 million more jobs a year for the next two decades. His agenda will allow more children to attend pre-school, more women to return to work, and modernize the nation’s electrical power grid.
See below for local coverage:
The Times Tribune: In downtown Scranton speech, Biden predicts prosperity if his agenda passes
[…]Speaking in front of a vintage trolley like the ones that ran to his Scranton neighborhood as a youth, Biden guaranteed no one earning less than $400,000 a year will pay “a single penny” more in taxes to pay for his agenda. Instead, the plan will cut taxes for the lower-income Americans while increasing taxes on wealthier people, he said. The spending will not increase the national debt because of the higher taxes and the investments will reduce inflation, he said.
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“I’m a capitalist. I think if you can be a millionaire, a billionaire fine,” said Biden, a millionaire himself. “Just do your fair share … Trickle-down economics has always failed. It hasn’t built this country … You know who built this country: Union people, people who in fact can make a decent hard wage, built this country.”
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Biden said the infrastructure bill and his Build Back Better Act would produce good-paying, union jobs.
“We have $39 billion to modernize American transit. I remember riding the trolley. I lived at the end of the line, as they say in Green Ridge. Three blocks from the end of the line. Beyond the end of the line was the dump,” Biden said. “You know the vast majority of people now, working people, live in cities. Their jobs are out of town, no longer in town … but 65% do not own an automobile.”
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“I am the most railroad guy you’re ever going to met,” he said. “You should name half the railroad after me.”
Afterward, Flynn said the support he’s heard for the Scranton project means a lot.
“We think it’s just a great idea,” Flynn said. “We’re here to support, of course, the infrastructure bill and the president’s vision. And we are excited about the opportunity to restart service between Scranton and New York. That’s our goal. That’s absolutely our goal.”
“No matter how long you live here in Scranton, it’s a place that climbs into your heart and it never really leaves you,” he said. “Scranton isn’t my home because of the memories you gave me. It’s home because of the values you gave me.”
Times Leader: Biden comes home to pitch infrastructure, investment
President Joe Biden returned to familiar stomping grounds on Wednesday evening, saying of Scranton that it’s the kind of place that “never really leaves you.”
Biden, who was born in and spent the earliest years of his life in the Electric City, returned to deliver a speech to a hand-picked group of supporters with the stated goal of drumming up support for the bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and the Build Back Better plan.
And during his nearly hour-long address at the Electric City Trolley Museum, Biden was at once hopeful for the nation’s future, but argued that that future hinges on a massive bolstering of the nation’s infrastructure and its lower and middle classes.
The speech comes at a critical moment for the passage of the two plans.
WBRE: President Biden Visit to Electric City Trolley Museum | Eyewitness News
[…]In Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan Pennsylvania will receive $11.3 billion for highway improvement projects and $1.6 billion for bridge repairs or replacement.
WBRE: Reactions to President Biden’s Visit
SCRANTON—
[…]Earlier Eyewitness News caught up with a group of Biden supporters looking forward to seeing the president come back to his hometown.
They spoke to Eyewitness News about the excitement about his visit saying his return goes to show a boy from Scranton can become the next President.
Supporters also said his agenda of coming to Scranton for his “Build Back Better” plan really reaches his voters.
Biden supporters say they’re also out here to get a glimpse at the President to really show support for him as he returns home as commander in chief.
“The best thing ever. But especially when your President is coming home. It just adds a little more excitement and it makes it a lot more exhilarating and it was just worthwhile coming here, you know supporting my president, making my voice heard,” said Mary Terequintana-Avila, who is a Biden supporter.
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“He was just a scrappy kid from Scranton. As a political science major myself it’s my dream to work in government and so seeing someone coming from our hometown, from our community, one of us, you know breathing the Scranton air from NEPA. It’s just so real seeing that somebody really made it to the top,” said Terequintana-Avila.
WNEP: Pres. Biden’s speech in Scranton was full of hometown references | wnep.com
SCRANTON, Pa. — “Hello, hello, hello! It’s good to be home!”
President Joe Biden didn’t skimp on the hometown references in his first visit to Scranton since the election.
“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,” President Biden said. “So, when I ran for president, I came back to Scranton. I came back to Scranton, and I started here in Scranton. And I resolved to bring Scranton values to bear, to make a fundamental shift in how our economy works for working people.”
The president touted his infrastructure bill that’s currently being debated in the Capitol.
He also promoted his entire build-back better agenda, calling it effectively a tax cut for middle-class families, funded entirely by increased taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
“So I’m here today to talk about what’s fundamentally at stake right now for families and for our country,” President Biden said.
The president spoke for nearly an hour, then spent another hour meeting with his supporters at the trolley museum before his motorcade made the trip back to Wilkes-Barre Scranton International airport.
On the way, he got to take a trip out of town on the new President Biden Expressway, an honor the scrappy kid from Scranton probably couldn’t even fathom as a child growing up here more than 65 years ago.
FOX56: President Biden highlights ‘Build Back Better’ Agenda at Electric City Trolley Museum
SCRANTON (WOLF) — President Joe Biden highlighted the benefits of his ‘Build Back Better Agenda’ in Scranton, Wednesday evening.
The commander-in-chief walked up with an iron worker at the Electric City Trolley Museum to present his ‘Build Back Better’ budget plan with a $3.5 trillion price tag.
A plan he says will give Pennsylvania $11.3 billion for highway improvement projects, and 1.6 billion dollars for bridge repairs or replacement.
“This is the United States of America dammit, What are we doing? And both these bills are going to help us meet the moment on the climate change crisis in a way that creates good jobs, makes us more economically competitive,” said President Biden.
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