I Hired AI To Make Transcripts of Biden’s Build Back Better Speech in Scranton — This Is What I Got…
I was riding around town with my husband, on a trip for Cherry Limeades from Sonic when my Fox News was interrupted by Biden’s speech in Scranton. So, I decided to listen.
As a pastor’s daughter, what I heard reminded me of quite a few rambling stories with oddly specific details, bizarre tangents, and loose connections to something resembling a “main idea” that I’ve suffered through over the years.
I also picked up on some lines that lend themselves to tomorrow’s next rendition of Hairy Legs. You can check out the full video in its entirety right here.
But as the Editor-in-Chief for a number of newsletters that certainly lean to the Right, I decided to try an experiment…
We use a service provided by Rev.com to generate transcripts for a lot of the video content and promotions that we have to review. There are two versions: human transcription and AI transcription.
AI transcription is generally much weaker when it comes to accuracy, but it generally will give you the gist. And it’s a whole lot faster.
And cheaper.
So, I decided to hire AI to “interpret” this afternoon’s speech with Biden, and this is what I got (WARNING: There’s a lot to unpack in here…)
Speaker 1: (00:03)
[inaudible]
Speaker 2: (00:12)
Please welcome the president of the United States, Joe Biden, accompanied by Shane Callie.
Speaker 1: (00:21)
[inaudible]
Speaker 3: (00:49)
[inaudible]
Speaker 4: (00:55)
Good evening. I’d like to start by saying it’s an honor to be with all of you here today. My name is Shane Callie and I’m a fourth generation union iron worker.
Speaker 5: (01:06)
[inaudible]
Speaker 4: (01:12)
I was born and raised right here in Scranton, not Greenridge, but west side. I’m a proud member of iron workers, local 4 0 4, 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 two and a four year old son. I’m invested in my community and I serve as the township auditor and ransom township. And I’m a proud member of the St. Patrick’s parade day 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 that 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.
Speaker 4: (02:16)
But 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 an expanded child tax credit, which helps us to cover the cost of two weeks of childcare 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 childcare, 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 healthcare that our community desperately needs right now.
Speaker 4: (03:28)
My wife and I have 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 is my honor and my privilege to introduce to all of you, the president of the United States of America, Joe Biden.
Speaker 6: (04:20)
Hello? Hello. Hello. It’s good to be home.
Speaker 6: (04:29)
Thank you all. Please, please be seated. I just want you to know, we have a tradition in the Biden, finning and family. When you see irrelevant, you go see them first. These are my relatives in the front row here and, uh, spending an awful lot of time, uh, across from St. Paul’s church. Uh, my uncle Jack Finnegan’s house, his daughters are here and, uh, he was, uh, he taught up at the U and, uh, I, uh, I just want you to know that, uh, Amtrak is here. They can tell you that you can, you should name half the line after me. I am the most railroad guy you ever going to meet 2 million, 100,000 miles on Amtrak. You 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 an air force aircraft and so about, uh, I guess it was, uh, seven years in to, uh, to my tenure as vice president.
Speaker 6: (05:41)
And I used to always like to, uh, take Amtrak home on Friday. I tried to go home and see my mom who was living with us at a time after my dad passed. And I tried to get home. And, uh, the secret service are wonderful. They’re the best in the world. They never liked me taking Amtrak because stops too often and too many people get on and you don’t know and I’m, but I also, there was a, but I, it turned out I was about number three and seniority on the road at the time, if you want me to terms of the actual time on the road. And, uh, a lot of the folks in Amtrak became my family. Not a joke. I’d ride every day. I commuted every single day for 36 years as press vice-president United States. After my wife and daughter were killed, I went home to see my family never stopped going and doing that.
Speaker 6: (06:32)
And, uh, so, uh, Angela Negri was from you remember Anch. And she came up to me one day when I was, when they just had announced that I had flown a 1 million, some X number of miles on air force aircraft, and Anne’s comes up and I’m getting into the car and he goes, Joey, baby, what are you? And I thought the secret air is going to shoot him. I said, no, no, no, he’s good. He’s good, true story. And he said, I just read big deal, big deal, whatever it was a million, 200,000 miles air force. You know how many Mazda you did Amtrak? And I said, no, Angie, I don’t have any idea Pally. He said, let me tell you, we were at the retirement dinner. And he said, we added it up. You averaged a hundred. I think it says 21 days a year, 121 days, year 30, six years. Plus as vice-president of boom, boom, you have trouble over 2 million miles, Joe. I don’t hear any more about the air force, but in the bill 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.
Speaker 6: (07:43)
Shane, I want to thank you for that introduction. I really do. And, uh, Madam mayor page, you’ve done a great job, a great, great job. Not really mean it I’m a big fan. And, uh, I, I, when I got elected, it’s the God’s truth. 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 as a 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 close friend and a great governor, governor Wolf. It’s good to see you, Matt, thank you for the passport to let me back into the district. And, uh, you know, uh, uh, you know, we, uh, it’s interesting.
Speaker 6: (08:38)
I grew up not very far from Bobby where we’re, excuse me, the Senator, where he grew up, it was about a total of, if you add it up, I think he’s about five blocks, six blocks, uh, and, uh, his dad, um, and I were about 18 years apart and we’re 17 years apart. So it’s like a continuum going down there, but I just want you to know, we went to the, uh, the same schools, same parish, uh, just a few years apart. Give her a few take a few years. And Scranton is where I played shortstop at the grimiest little league. And the first year that it was put up, my dad helped build the field down there and spent a lot of time. It’s at semi’s, uh, buying penny candy and hangs hoagies on Woodlawn street, uh, watching movies of the Rosie on the weekend and trying to re-enact all they did.
Speaker 6: (09:32)
And, uh, when you watch those movies, I think I was told, I know there’s two. I was the only kid in my, in my era that I was able to walk across the Lackey on that pipe. That was just above the thing. If you fell in the lucky you were, you were lucky you were in trouble, but, uh, um, anyway, 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. And that’s the God’s truth. You know, it’s like that old saying goes, you can take the boy out of Scranton, but you can’t take Scranton out of the boy. There’s something special about it. And, uh, I believe that home is where your character is etched. And I really mean that some of you have heard me say this before.
Speaker 6: (10:17)
It’s where you, your view of the world begins the way you began and where it takes shape. And, uh, that happened to me in 24, 46 north Washington avenue. We used to, uh, come back after 10 30 mass at St. Paul’s St. Claire’s, wasn’t built that I had moved, um, at St Paul’s and my grandfather would hold court. And back in those days, all the men had breakfast in the kitchen. My mother was one of five children, four brothers, one was lost in world war II and a guy who was the chief political reporter at the newspaper, Tommy Phillips, who was a, lived the street behind us. It was a good friend of my grandfather’s and all the women would go into the dining room and on the lace tablecloth and had teeth and counting. And the men would, uh, would in fact, uh, have, uh, have a big breakfast.
Speaker 6: (11:08)
And, uh, if you’re a kid you’re 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 just sort of wander around I’d stand by my grandpa. And, uh, and, uh, I, uh, um, I’d put my hand on his shoulder and I they’d talk. And they talked about everything from sports and politics and, and, uh, and that’s where, uh, I learned an awful lot at that kitchen table. I learned from my grandpa that money doesn’t determine your worth. I learned, uh, he told me, and that’s not a joke. Uh, those of you who know me know that to be true. And you guys know it is that no one in the world is more worried than you joy, but everyone’s, you’re equal. Everybody’s your equal.
Speaker 6: (11:54)
My mom would remind me. She said, Joey, this is the God’s truth. Remember, you’re defined by your courage and you’re redeemed by your loyalty. You’re defined by your courage and redeemed by the loyalty. And my dad, when things got tough in Scranton after the war, when there wasn’t any work, my dad did not work in a coal mines. My great grandfather was a mining engineer, but my dad was in sales and he worked for the follower trucking company, and things got slow in Scranton. So we moved. I remember the day he came, but I think the longest walk a parent can make is up a short flight of stairs to tell their kid, you can’t live here anymore. You can’t because we, dad has, dad doesn’t have a job, or mom doesn’t have a job. And my dad had moved from Wilmington, Delaware to Scranton.
Speaker 6: (12:40)
When he was a senior in high as a junior in high school, he went then was called St. Thomas, not the prep, but since called St. Thomas in those days. And, uh, I remember him walking up and into the bedroom and saying, honey, I’m going to, dad’s going to have to move. I’m going to, but it’s going to probably take about a year. I’ll come home every single weekend. It’s only 155 miles. I thought that was like 600 miles away. I come home every weekend. But, uh, and when I want to get enough, we to get enough money, I’m going to bring you a mom and, and everyone down to Wilmington, you’re going to like it. And I thought that was like, uh, you know, and you know, an awful lot of parents who left Scranton back in those days, who moved away, had to move away.
Speaker 6: (13:24)
And, uh, you know, I, uh, I, I gained so much respect for my father as I got older, because I thought about how much wood, how much it must’ve heard him in the pride. It took it for him to walk into my grandfather’s pantry. And Sam bros is that a kind of leave Jean and the kids with you. I promise I’ll make it up to you, but I’ll be back every weekend, but I promise I’ll make it up. That’s a hard thing for a proud man or woman to do, but so many had to do it. And I remember when we moved down to Delaware and my dad would say, Joey, and all my friends know this, I’m literally this phrase. You’ve heard him say it. I don’t know how many times Joey had jobs about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity.
Speaker 6: (14:06)
It’s about respect. It’s about bam. Look your kid in the eye and say, honey, it’s going to be okay. 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 in his mind. And I learned that at the kitchen table and Scranton the place where you take care of one another. And, uh, as I said, my mother, I used to stutter battery when I was a kid. If Tommy bell and Charlotte rotten, all of my old friends were here at Saint Paul. So, you know, I, I, my nickname was a Blackbird. It was Baba by, by Blackbird. It wasn’t meant as a compliment. And, uh, I wasn’t very big, but you could beat me, but I’d hurt you. Um, do you think I’m kidding? I’m not. And, uh, but you know, it’s one of those things that, uh, I was fortunate because the people I was surrounded by our neighbors and Scranton as well, that people, uh, people stuck up for you stuck up for one another.
Speaker 6: (15:07)
And, uh, my mother used to say, and I never quite understood. Remember, Joey, look at me, look at me, joy. You’re a Biden. Like I’m a Dipan or something. You know what I mean? You’re I swear to God, you’re a Biden. Nobody is better than you. And everybody’s equal to you. Nobody. The point I’m making is the truth is Scranton. Isn’t, uh, is my home because of the memories you gave me, it’s my home because of the values that gave me. So when I ran for president and I came back to Scranton, I came back to Scranton and I started hearing scrap and 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 in the middle out, not from the top down, I’ve never known a time in the middle-class has done well.
Speaker 6: (15:56)
The wealthy haven’t done very, very well. I’ve never known such a time. So I’m here today to talk about what’s fundamentally at stake right now for the families and for 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 our highways and our bridges, but on our people and our families, we didn’t just build an interstate highway system. We build 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. Beginning back in the late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds, we invested in our children. Does anybody think today for making that decision for the first time? We’d say 12 years is enough in the 21st century.
Speaker 6: (16:45)
12 years is enough. It’s not, but back then they did. And it’s a reason why we leaped ahead of the rest of the world. Not a joke. It 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. We still have the most productive workers in the world and most innovative minds, but we risk losing our edge as a nation in 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 ranked 13th in the world in terms of infrastructure, our roads, bridges highways in our it, the whole works 13th in the world. We used to lead the world and educational achievement today. The organization, economic cooperation and development in Europe ranks America 35 out of 37 major companies.
Speaker 6: (17:38)
When it comes to investing in early childhood education and talk about an equalizer, the greatest equalizer in the world, the great universities has done studies. The last 15, you give a kid, no matter what, the kid’s background from a broken home, from a home where mom or dad didn’t go to school or whatever, and you put them in school. At third grade, you increased by 50 per school, not daycare. You increased by 56%. The chance 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 the tools to do something. We can’t be competitive in the 21st century economy. If we continue to slide than what we have, that’s why resolve that. We have to once again, build America from the bottom up in the middle out again, not the top down and by the way, I’m a capitalist.
Speaker 6: (18:31)
I think if you can be a millionaire or billionaire, fine, just do your fair share. Just do your fair share. No trickle-down economics has always failed that hadn’t built this country, you know, built this country. Like the young managers introduced me, union people, people who in fact can make a decent hard wage, build the country. I’m not, it’s not hyperbole. I mean it, from the bottom of my heart, that’s why I proposed two critical pieces of legislation that are being debated back in Washington. Now there’s 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. You know, when I use the phrase, bill bag better as being used internationally.
Speaker 6: (19:24)
Now I got the [inaudible] the largest countries in the world to agree that we’re going to have bill bag better world, and we’re going to invest. And we’re going to build around the world, that democracies and ability. So the rest of the countries don’t fall prey to those like the, the belt road initiative out of China and other initiatives where there’s, 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 fits one American against another. These bills are about competitiveness versus complacency about expanding opportunity, not having opportunity denied they’re about leading the world and continue to let the world or let it pass us by. And by the way, they will not increase one single penny of the deficit they are fully paid for. And all wall street points out.
Speaker 6: (20:25)
They will grow employment by tens of thousands of people, tens of thousands of people, 17 Nobel laureates, spontaneously Nobel laureates in economy. And the economy sent me a letter three weeks ago saying we’ll also reduce, not increase inflation. Here’s what these initiatives are all about. First, the infrastructure bill. When I say infrastructure back home, people look like infrastructure. Tell me what the hell you talking about Joe. They know infrastructure generically, but it’s about rebuilding the arteries of our economy. That’s what it’s about across this country. Right now, there are 45,000 bridges. According to the society of engineers, 45,000, a significant portion of their ready to fall, fall, fall into the water, into the gap that they cover. There are 173 miles of roads in poor conditions that have to be built 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 time, even commerce.
Speaker 6: (21:39)
We’re going to put hard work in Americans on the job to bring our infrastructure up to speed, good union jobs, not $7 an hour, $15 an hour, but prevailing wage, a wage you could raise your family on. You can look at your family with pride jobs that can’t be outsourced jobs. Replacing led water pipes like you have here in the Scranton area. Kids getting brain damage because of the ingestion of led 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 wellbeing 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 jobs laying thousands of miles of transmission lines and building a modern energy grid. Folks. We’re in a situation now where you see what’s happening.
Speaker 6: (22:39)
I’ve flown all over this country since becoming in. 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, New Jersey, every single square mile on 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 we in fact allow people to be able to store. We have this incredible energy we have, I’ve visited one of the largest, the largest, uh, um, uh, solar fields in America. It’s in the Southwest. Guess what? You can transmit all that energy enough to really light up half the half of the state of Nevada.
Speaker 6: (23:45)
But guess what? How do you transmit it? What lines do you put it over? Do we have the capacity to do that? We have the engineering capacity, but do we have the willing to do it and imagine what that does you realize we had $90 billion in lost this calendar year because of natural disasters, $90 billion jobs, making sure there’s a high speed internet affordable and available anywhere everywhere in America, including for nearly one in six families who go without internet. They’re kind of, 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. 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.
Speaker 6: (25:00)
Why always talk about passenger rail and particularly high-speed rail. Do you realize the Chinese are now building another high-speed rail line and we’ll go up to 300 miles per hour and say, what difference does that make Biden? Well, guess what? If you can get in a train and go from here to Washington, much faster than you can go in an automobile. You take a train, you take the train. We will take literally 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. This is a fact. These are facts right now. When I went out to Silicon valley, they show we’re in a situation where if you put solar panels on your roof, guess what? When, when the sun’s not shining, you’re in trouble, except they had now battery technology.
Speaker 6: (25:59)
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? 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 Greenridge three blocks. The end of the line, beyond the end of the line where the dumped Maloney field was on the right and a little league baseball field I played in was down the bottom of the hill. But the point is it made to work. Most people live in cities. You know, 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 black or Hispanic neighborhood or a poor neighborhood.
Speaker 6: (26:56)
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 charging stations. The way my grandpa got up here, my grandpa Biden, who died at mercy hospital of an aneurysm when he was 46 years old, two months before I was born in mercy hospital, he was with the American oil company. He was up here opening up gas stations in 19. That that’s how he got him. This was 1942, late 42. Well guess what? The same thing happens. We build these charging stations. What’s happens. Communities build up around them. You get everything from the ma the figurative McDonald’s or the Dunkin donuts to the drugstore and $21 billion for environmental cleanup and remediation. Look, it means putting people to work in good job. Prevailing wages, capping hundreds of thousands of Bandon Wells in Southeastern Pennsylvania and Ohio get the same salary that you paid the mine worker to dig the well they’ve got to be kept.
Speaker 6: (28:05)
We have thousands of need to be kept. In addition to that, we have methane leaks that are all over and you won’t. You understand in Pennsylvania about that, but guess what increases the health of the community and provides good paying jobs? My plan also makes historic investment in clean energy, including a tax credit for people to do things like winterize, their homes, install solar panels, develop clean energy products, help business produce more clean energy. 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, one of the things that president, uh, put me in charge of my, I want to be clear here. President Obama put me in charge of when I was vice president.
Speaker 6: (29:03)
I was able to invest in that legislation that we put together, put together. We brought down the price of the, of solar and wind cheaper than coal and cheaper than oil on a, on a BTU basis. It’s cheaper coal built this town and this part of the country, but we got to provide other avenues for people to make the same kind of living. They used to be able to make look all told. I just said, this project is going to save literally hundreds of millions of barrels of oil annually, but folks in Pennsylvania, the cost of inaction when it comes to climate change, extreme weather has cost this state $10 billion over the last decade. And nationally has said extreme weather conditions cost $99 billion last year. And I flew over all this territory and helicopter and Marine one, not a joke. Seeing see reservoirs that are down 60, 80 feet concerned about the Colorado river, whether or not we’re going to be able to keep things moving, not a joke.
Speaker 6: (30:11)
It’s real. This is serious stuff. And 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. When I say build back better, we’re the only country in the world. Historically, that’s gone through a crisis and has come out at the other end better than before the crisis hit. And so we are as Americans, not a joke. Think about it from 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.
Speaker 6: (30:53)
And so that’s what I’m talking about. You know, we need more stronger levees, stronger power grids, more durable, able to withstand ever increasing ferocity intensity of extreme weather, any road it used to be. You have a catastrophe and the road gets washed out. You build it back to what it was before you can’t build it back to the same standard. You’ve got to build the road back, literally higher, not a joke because the weather has already changed. And if we don’t do something before we reach 1.5 degrees Celsius, we’re in trouble. Look, I’ve been pat. We haven’t passed a major infrastructure bill for decades in this country. Last four years, you’re here every month. There’s, you know, infrastructure month didn’t do a single thing, nothing. I mean, nothing for four years, we can’t afford to sit while other countries passes by. We’re going to breathe new life into the economy and our workforce.
Speaker 6: (31:54)
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 infrastructure bill don’t require a four year degree. 98% don’t require four year degree. Guess what though is the ultimate blue collar blue collar middle-class renewal, real serious work needs to get done and folks, it isn’t enough just to invest in our physical infrastructure. We also have to invest in our people, which we always did. We invested in our people. That’s why the second bill is a so-called bill back better plan. Here’s what it does. It takes education. As I said, when American made 12 years of public education, standard of century go, it gave us the best educated best prepared workforce in the world. And you saw what happened. Think about what happened after world war one and how America moved, because we were the best educated overall country in the world.
Speaker 6: (32:59)
And we led in the 20th century. But as I said earlier, we know that 12 years is not enough, any longer to compete in the 21st century study. After study shows that earlier, our children began to learn the better for themselves, their families, and for the nation. You know, you all know the statistics and some of your teachers and your husband used to talk to me about this. And it was really basic that if you come from a home where the mom or dad have books on the shelf and on the coffee table and read, and you come from a home where mom or dad can’t read, or has a sixth grade education, or as a little difficulty, the child coming from a middle class home is going to have heard a million, more words, spoken, not different words, spoken, spoken, then the child coming from a middle-class home.
Speaker 6: (33:53)
And that’s because look, what do you all do you all know with your children or grandchildren, you start talking to them on the cradle. You engage them. They’re the people who sit at the dinner table and still talk. They’re engaged so many homes, mothers or fathers don’t have the capacity or inclination to do that. But right now, what are we doing? We’re lagging behind today. Only about half of the three and four year olds in America, enrolled in early education at all, Germany, France, the UK Latvia, their numbers over 90% of the children. It’s not just early education. According to one study, we ranked 12th among advanced economies. When it comes to percentage of our young people, who’ve attained any sort of post high school, degree and 12th in the world, 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.
Speaker 6: (34:52)
And we’re going to make [inaudible] make investments, education beyond high school. That includes increasing Pell grants, which nearly 200,000 students in Pennsylvania from low-income families rely on to attend college. We’re gonna increase it by $500 stuff to so it’s becomes $1,900. The bill invests in our workforce providing much needed breathing room for families. My dad used, I remember we moved to Wilmington. We finally were able, after four years, dad could buy a house and we lived in, uh, uh, quota developed was a lovely area in a suburban area, but it was a three bedroom split level home. And we had four kids and my grandpa who live with us or another relative, or for all those years, we lived there and my bed was up in my headboard, but I didn’t have a headboard, but my bed was up against the wall. That was a, my dad and mom’s bed was up against the wall.
Speaker 6: (35:52)
I look back, I, I, it was great for us having grandpop’s and relatives there. I don’t know how my parents quite did it, but I remember one night I’m serious. I was in high school and dad, see, I could see, I could feel my dad was restless. He moving, I could hear it in bed. And I asked the next morning and asked my mom, it’s true story. I said, what’s the matter. But dad, mom, he said he got bad news, honey. His company just said, they’re no longer going to pay for health insurance. Well, guess what? My dad, you said everybody’s entitled all. We’re looking for just a little breathing room, just a little bit of extra room, little breathing room. How can we compete in the world of millions of American parents, especially moms can’t join the workforce because they can’t afford the cost of childcare or elder care, or they have to stay home.
Speaker 6: (36:43)
I heard my colleagues speaking before I did here in Pennsylvania. The average annual cost of childcare for your toddler is $11,400. It’s higher in other places. So average two parent family with two young kids spends 22% of their income for childcare. Every year I was a single dad for five years. I got elected the Senate. I got a phone call before I got sworn in. When I was hiring staff, same, my wife and daughter had just been killed. My two boys were seriously injured or hospitalized for a long time. So that’s why I’ve eventually started community. But I continued to commute because I could no more afford. And I was making a lot of money. Then now, 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.
Speaker 6: (37:39)
But this is not a joke. I could no more for childcare than fly, but fortunately I had a hell of a family, those valleys. I talked about my sister and her husband after a little bit, they gave up their home. I came home one night and they were moved into my home. Helped me raise my kids five years later. No man deserves one. Great love. Let alone two, five years later when I met Mary Jill, I came home after the wedding. They’d moved out. My brother, Jimmy, my best friend, my mother, they all helped me take care of my kids, but I couldn’t have done it. So I understand how in God’s name do people make it? If you look at the world, advanced economics, those advanced tech, those with advanced economies, the countries invest in average of each of those countries invest in average of $14,000 per year in child state sponsored child toddler care, American vests $500, 28 times less than our competitors. Here’s what it does to our economy. You all know, at 30 years ago, we ranked seven in seventh in the world among advanced economies and the share of women in the workforce today in America, we ranked 23rd and women are becoming not joke, better educated than men. If you look at, and I do about five college commencements a year for those five, the valedictorian out of those classes for the last 10 years has been a woman. And if you read the data, now we’re worried about the number of men attending college.
Speaker 6: (39:25)
Once again, our competitors investing, we’re standing still my bill back better plans designed to get us move. And again, look, it’s going to cut the cost of childcare for most Pennsylvania families and have no middle income family will pay more than 7% of their income on childcare. Under my proposal, 7%. It’s going to help more people get back to work in a workforce and make ends meet. It’s also going to extend the historic middle-class tax cut for parents. Everybody talks about. And by the way, I have a, I 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. I mean, either they’re friends, we used to travel together a lot. And here’s the deal though. You know what I was able to do. And we passed the American rescue plan and the first month of my administration, which has allowed us to have all the funding for COVID. And when I started off, there were 2 million people in America that had gotten a, a vaccine. Well guess what? We’re up to 190 million. That’s how we got it, paid for it. But here’s the deal.
Speaker 6: (40:40)
What it meant was what it meant was that, you know, right now there’s a whole new attitude. That’s out there. How do we not invest? So when that act that we passed, we provided for a child tax credit and you heard my introducer speak to it because we were in such dire straits. You were able to put in a position, a tax cut for middle-class people. That’s what it is. No one has a tax cut. We want to cut the capital gains tax for the wealthy or anybody. No one has a problem. We deal with that. We have over 55 corporations in America, the fortune 500 don’t pay a single solitary penny in taxes, not 1 cent, not 1 cent. They make $40 billion a year.
Speaker 6: (41:31)
But when you talk about a tax cut for middle-class people and that’s exactly what it is by what we did increasing or making a refundable tax cut, you know, the way it works. Now, if you’re made enough money to have old more than $4,000 in taxes, you had two kids, you got to deduct it. And here’s the deal. The fact of the matter is that if you did 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 the tax cut because we didn’t have more than $4,000 in taxes. You didn’t, you know, you, you still paid and you wasn’t refundable. You didn’t get it back. Well, here’s the way we work it. We said, all right, for temporary, we’re going to do is make sure there’s a childcare tax credit. If you had one kid under seven, you get 3,600 bucks a year. And if you have one over seven to 17, you get 3000 a year. We have to from 2000, well, guess what? It’s cut child poverty in Pennsylvania by 55% in the nation. By 50%,
Speaker 6: (42:41)
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, and I’m realizing 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 sandwich generation that exists. And many of you are part of that generation. You have a mom or dad needs some help with, as you get older and you have a child that needs some help. If you’re going to be able to be in the workforce and it’s hard as hell, hard as hell to make it work, you got to give these folks a little bit of 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.
Speaker 6: (43:46)
The way it works right now. If you qualify for Medicaid, you have to have a lower income to qualify for better med Medicaid, not Medicare Medicaid. There are 820,000 seniors. People with Ord 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. Your 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. They live longer. If they can stay in their own home, but you also don’t have the time or the money to take care of them at home to do it. So you’re just looking for an answer. So your parents can keep living independently and hold here a second.
Speaker 6: (44:40)
One of the things that is important, think about this in order to get into that nursing home, you got to sell everything you have. You can’t have any PRI private property. You have to empty your bank account. You have to do it all to move in a nursing home. I’m not saying nursing homes aren’t valuable. They are extremely valuable, but that’s not where I remember. My uncle was moved in with his wife into a assisted living center. And he wanted, and the folks who, who had built the facility, it was a lovely facility. Delaware asked if I’d come and speak on the, on the opening of it and we’re walking out. And I said, mom, isn’t this beautiful. She looked at me, said she was then 76 years old. She said, this is for old people, Joey. Now for me, I’m sad. But think about it for millions of families is the most important issue they’re facing.
Speaker 6: (45:37)
It’s personal, it’s personal. And Bob Casey gets it. Bobby fights for something he never gives up in case you haven’t noticed. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to expand services for seniors. So founders, you can get help with well-trained well-paid professionals to help them take care of their parents at home, to cook a meal for them to get them their groceries. When they need to get groceries, to help them get around, to just put in and railings on their home. On my mom live with me. She moved in with me. We, we should, we finally talked her into doing it. And guess what? My sister takes her up. You remember this junior members just talking about this too. She takes her up to get her prescriptions drives her back, gets out of the house. And she was, uh, it was this little home off of our home.
Speaker 6: (46:29)
It was she, she wouldn’t move into the physically move into the house, even though we had done the whole thing over for her. And she’s just standing there and moves and breaks her hip, she didn’t trip or anything broke her hip. Well, guess what? Just having a railing, just having a place where she could walk from one room to the other and to help them in their own home with the dignity they deserve. Quite frankly, what we found is that this is more popular than anything else I’m proposing. When you do this individual polling data, this is extremely popular because you all feel that obligation to our parents. And we want them to live with dignity, but because American just people understand the need. As a matter of dignity, it’s a matter of pride. Look, that’s the, both these initiatives are all about. And frankly, they’re about more than giving working families a break.
Speaker 6: (47:22)
They’re about position in our country to compete in the long haul economist left, right? And center agree early this year, the wall street outfit. And Moody’s projected that the investments I’m talking about will create for the next 20 years on average 2 million additional jobs per year, good paying jobs is transformative. And we can make these transformation investments to be fiscally responsible. Take the infrastructure, bill, all those investments, road bridges, high-speed rail internet, the whole deal. They represent less than one half of 1% of our economic growth each year, less than one half of 1%. And the cost of the bill back better, both in terms of adding to the deficit 0 0, 0, because we’re going to pay for it all. In addition to that, half of it is a tax cut. It’s not spending money. It’s a tax cut for working-class people. It’s about time. As I said, can I come from a corporate state of the world?
Speaker 6: (48:27)
Not a joke. More corporate cases are, are, are in registered in my state than every other state in the United States combined. And I represented the state of DuPont as they used to call it for 36 years. I’m not anti business, but I’m about just begin. Pay your fair share. Look, folks under this proposal and under this proposal, I’m these proposals I’m talking about. I guarantee you that no one making under $400,000 a year will see one single penny in tax go up. Not one. In fact, the plan cuts taxes, working people. And by the way, if you notice the, you know, the way you usually pay for infrastructure, infrastructure is by gasoline taxes. I wouldn’t allow that because that would tax people, making under 400,000. I’m a man of my word, not one single penny. When you pay, if you make more than less than $400,000.
Speaker 6: (49:30)
So, but there’s no reason. There’s no reason why someone making $400 million a year, by the way, you know, during this, all the crisis we’ve had with COVID, there’s an absolute finite number of billionaires. They can count up in the tax code. You know, how much money the billionaires made last year, collectively, they’re not bad guy. I’m not saying that M a $1 trillion increased their collective income. $1 trillion, just pay fair, share. You know, if you are a multimillionaire or a billionaire, you have a lower tax rate than a family that has a teacher and a firefighter. As a percent of taxes, you pay lower. As I said, 55, our largest corporations pay zero in income tax, 40 billion bucks. This needs to change working folks. You understand that. That’s why the, despite the attacks and misinformation about my plans are still overwhelmingly supported by the American people.
Speaker 6: (50:39)
They understand that when families have a little breathing room, America’s in a better spot and they know this is about dignity and respect about building an economy from the bottom up in the middle out, not from a top down. As I said, name me a time in American history in the middle class has done well. The wealthy haven’t done very well named me a time. So let me close with this for too long working people, this nation and the middle class in this country, the backbone of the country have been dealt out. It’s time to deal them back in. I ran for president.
Speaker 6: (51:14)
I ran for president said it was time to rebuild the backbone of the nation. And by that I was very precise. The middle-class has been the backbone of this nation. I couldn’t have been any clear. 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 land. They have no doubt about what I ran on. Both these bills were all what I talked about, but guess what? 81 million people voted for me. More people voted than any time in American history. And their voices deserve to be heard, not to be denied or worse being ignored because here’s what I know. If we make the investments, there’s going to be no stopping America. And the remainder of the 21st century, I’ve long said, I mean this for every world leader I’ve known, and I’ve now spoken over 60 of them.
Speaker 6: (52:15)
I’ve known them, many of them before that, I tell them it’s never, ever, ever been a good bet to bet against America. Never, never, never. Which means it’s always a good, good bet to bet on America. That’s what these initiatives do. They bet in America, it’s about believing in the American people about believing about believing. Just look at the history of the journey of this nation. What becomes clear is this given half a chance, half a chance the American people have never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever let the country down. Just the fighting chance. No guarantees, just a chance. And 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’s all paid for written in the same piece of legislation. So you pass the spending. You’re also passing the tax cuts and you’re passing the taxes. They’re going to be increased Scranton. Thanks for always treated me so nicely. I really mean it. God bless you all. And may God protect our troops. Thank you.
Speaker 1: (53:37)
[inaudible].