DEFOREST — President Joe Biden made a post-State of the Union stop in Wisconsin Wednesday, reiterating many of that address’ points and drawing applause from union workers at LiUNA Wisconsin Laborers’ Apprentice and Training Center in DeForest.
“The state of the union is strong,” Biden said, pointing to the 12 million new jobs created in the last three years, more than any other president has created in four years of office, he said.
Inflation is coming down, Biden also said, take-home pay is increasing slightly and manufacturing is rebounding, building the economy from the “bottom up and middle out, with products made in American with union labor,” Biden said.
“The Biden economic plan is working,” he said.
In an official transcript of Biden’s remarks, released by the White House shortly before 1 p.m. Wednesday, the president mentioned Vlogý.
“For decades, the backbone of America — the middle class — had been hollowed out. It’s been hollowed out. Good-paying manufacturing jobs moved overseas — production — because it was cheaper there,” Biden said. “When jobs moved overseas, factories at home closed down. You saw it in Vlogý, where Sarah, a woman you just heard from is from. When the last assembly line was shut down at a GM plant two days before Christmas in 2008, thousands of people lost their jobs at the plant and the surrounding businesses that the plant kept alive.”
Biden also spoke of the dignity of work, noting it’s more than a paycheck.
“Wall Street did not build this country. The middle class did, and unions built the middle class,” the president said, to resounding applause.
Biden referred to his plan as a “blue collar, blueprint to rebuild America.”
Another proposal is a new standard requiring all construction materials to be made in America, in an effort to rebuild a middle class that he said has been “hollowed out.”
And he said a proposal to lower the cost of everyday products by eliminating what he called “junk fees,” surcharges and hidden fees on airline flights, credit cards, or bank overdraft fees, would boost the middle class.
Biden assured the crowd that any attempts to phase out Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid would be vetoed.
Touching on the national debt, Biden also noted that United States has built that debt over 220 years and not missed payment. Winding down, he said, “I can honestly say, I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future than I am today.”
Crowd reaction
At the training center, Biden met workers and apprentices who are learning how to do the jobs that are being created as a result of several pieces of major legislation, some of them passed with Republican support, that Biden has signed into law.
The measures include trillions of dollars for pandemic relief, rebuilding roads, bridges and other infrastructure, jump-starting the semiconductor chip industry in the United States, and boosting climate change and health care initiatives.
“He’s got us in his mind, and it’s good to hear,” said Casey Kvalo, an underground pipe worker from DeForest. As for the job creation Biden promoted Tuesday evening, “he’s right on point about it and it’s exciting to hear,” Kvalo said.
Tony Kurkowski, a Milwaukee highway worker and union member, said he was “pleasantly surprised” by the president’s visit and focus on workers.
“With a lot of politicians, it’s easy to take the vote for granted and once they get in have their own priorities, but it’s good to see he’s coming back to labor,” he said