tv The Faulkner Focus FOX News October 28, 2021 8:00am-9:00am PDT
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also referring to tuesday's vote. big deal. mccauliffe and youngkin. complete coverage of that coming up momentarily. shots from the white house and we'll see the president in 30 minutes or so. >> martha: watch for nancy pelosi later and i'll see you at 3:00 on the story. >> nice to have you back today. we brought the action, right? >> martha: we sure did. >> bill: here is harris. >> harris: fox news alert now. a big question. can president biden get the far left in his political party to begin adulting? we're told behind the scenes it is an unmitigated mess. you're in "the faulkner focus". president biden is set to unveil the framework, he says, for his massive spending agenda in an address to the nation this hour before he heads overseas. he is going to glascow and talk climate change, blah blah blah and we're watching the lectern on the bottom right of your
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screen. when he walks up we'll watch as a nation. right now biden is facing a huge obstacle. one moderate democrat told fox news quote, unquote, it's the fing progressives. we cleaned it up. even with the massive price tag at 1.75 trillion the far left is furious as what has been cut and cut and cut from the plan. and now some are threatening to block the separate bipartisan infrastructure bill until they get what they want. >> how much they've changed and taken back, etc. we need text. we need text. we can talk a little bit flexibility around process but we need confirmed text. >> infrastructure bill >> i don't see how ethically i can vote to increase. >> >> harris: put it in a text in writing. she wants a bill.
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senator john kennedy republican from louisiana is standing by with reaction to go in "focus." first chad pergram live on capitol hill. you had aoc not happy. >> democrats say they have a framework but there is still no firm legislative text to this bill and house speaker nancy pelosi says the president asked for a vote today. there is an aim to tackle both the infrastructure bill and the social spending plan today. >> leadership will have to talk about how they plan it but i think -- >> a vote on the reconciliation bill today? >> my impression is they want to get everything done today, leadership and the president. >> a light hearted moment when there were pumpkins. maybe the framework turns into a pumpkin if they don't vote tonight. unclear if everyone is on board. >> i wish i could say yes but
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there is a great deal of uncertainty within the caucus as to what is contained in the bill. there is a will to do it and i think a positive feeling. we've been waiting to satisfy two senators, hopefully we can do that soon. >> progressives insist on a strict climate policy and to reduce emissions. they want legislative text first before they agree to anything here. that is something that progressives have been pushing a lot. democrats hope a general framework would unlock votes on the infrastructure bill. president biden came to capitol hill a month ago hoping for a deal and leaves today without anything completely nailed down. harris. >> harris: thank you very much, chad. john kennedy in "focus" now. republican senator from louisiana and member of the senate judiciary committee. good to see you today. first of all, how bad is it? is it being overblown, the infighting that's going on down chamber?
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>> well, here is what i've observed. the democrats are pretty much in total disarray. president biden is sort of like kevin bacon at the end of "animal house" when people are stampeding him and he is saying calm down, be calm, everything is under control. they say they have a framework. now to me a framework is when your car has two wheels down, axle dragging and you are in the ditch and don't have any help and you tell your spouse honey, i have a framework to get us out of this ditch. and i think that's where we are based on the little i've seen of the framework, i just love that term. framework. i have a framework to be a
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billionaire someday, you know? i think people who are successful financially should be applauded, not criticized in america but i love the term framework. i've seen a little of it. i know this, they will try to crush small business and they are making tax policy on the basis of class warfare. >> harris: let me ask you this. those are dire issues that you are bringing up potentially that could pass in this bill. you saw the congresswoman ocasio-cortez pleading for text. she wants something in writing. who is wearing the pants in the scenario among the democrats? what can republicans make of that? is there some pressure to be applied? we know that joe manchin of west virginia certainly has at least one leg of those pants on. is there some pressure to be applied to maybe get what you want? >> well, it's rare that i agree
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with the congresswoman. on this one i think she is right. anybody who votes for any of these bills without seeing the fine print is like a rock only dumber. because that's how they are getting all the nasty provisions. they talk about frameworks and outlines and top lines and concepts. typical washington-type speak and then they put all the nasty stuff in the fine print. >> harris: nancy pelosi told us you have to pass a thing before you know what's in it. >> we know how that turned out. >> harris: why would they do that to themselves this time? earlier this month speaker pelosi said this about the public's perception of the bill. it's not writing the way we would want it to be. she talked about its popularity. let's watch. >> do people know where it
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springs from? no. it has a lot in the bill and we have to continue to make sure the public does. but whether they know it or not they overwhelmingly support it. >> harris: i have to pause there. what does that mean? >> i'm not sure. maybe that's how they came up with their framework. you know, whether the american people think about this i'm biased. we'll find out on the mid-term elections. i think a majority of americans are saying republicans aren't perfect but the democrats are now crazy. they think they can tax, spend and regulate us into prosperity and they think america can only be great through its federal government. federal government didn't make america great. ordinary people doing extraordinary things did. a lot of them are thinking what i said before. america was founded by geniuses
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but it is being run by idiots. >> harris: there are places we need the federal government but they aren't engaging like at the border. tackling inflation. they could lean in and make a difference. those are all the points they sit down. confusing. "wall street journal" is out with the op-ed titled fly by night taxation and reads in part. one day an increase in tax rates in corporations and affluent but wait. that doesn't have the votes. how about a carbon tax? that won't fly, either. there goes jeff bezos, let's tax him and 699 other billionaires. it polls well. everyone hates billionaires. is this how you put legislation? it sounds like a bunch of people with crayons. >> it reminds me of the politician -- we've known several -- that say to the people i have principles and if you don't like them i have others. you don't make tax policy on the basis of class warfare and
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you don't make tax policy solely on revenue. this is an extraordinarily complex economy. the greatest economy in all of human history. you sit down and make thoughtful changes. you also look for offsets if you are going to raise taxes here, you want to look for a way to cut taxes over here. they haven't done any of that. >> harris: president biden says it costs zero. >> oh well, i don't -- somebody at the white house has been smoking the devil's lettuce, okay? i mean, i'm just telling you. they think this is zero. either that or they think the american people are morons and there believe anything. >> harris: senator, you never edit your words and it is amazing to see you talk so candidly about what's going on on the hill. this was supposed to be their show. they are in the majority in the house. slightly, barely, sometimes in the senate and they have the
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white house. you and your colleagues on the senate judiciary committee went after somebody else with the administration yesterday, the attorney general merrick garland and we carried parts of it on fox. during this hour it got really heated. senators demanding to know why the a.g. wants the feds to go after parents and what he knows about the reports p white house coordinated with the teachers union on its letter. let's watch a clip. >> in drafting the letter, the national school board association collaborated with the white house. the white house promptly called you and said sic the f.b.i. on parents in school board hearings. the white house is the prophet. you are just the vessel. >> you have weaponized the f.b.i. and department of justice. it is unprecedented and i call on you to resign. >> dur consider the chilling
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impact your memo would have on parents exercising their constitutional rights? >> why would you ever release a memo? did you write that memo? did staff write that memo? what would have led you to do this? it is so over the top. >> your directive is shameful. thank god you aren't on the supreme court. you should resign in disgrace, judge. >> harris: there is senator cotton of arkansas reminding everybody it was obama's pick for the u.s. supreme court. then mitch mcconnell said i won't put it up for a vote. senator kennedy, is it just garland, is it just the d.o.j., is it the white house, is it a further -- who is against parents right now in this administration? or something else? >> i walked away from the hearing thinking forget mars, we need to look for intelligent life in washington, d.c.
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it's not personal but judge garland didn't rock it yesterday. to be fair as i said at the hearing he is just the vessel, the tool. this is coming out of the white house. the white house supports critical race theory, they support the proposition that white babies are born bad and african-american babies are born hopeless and can't succeed without government help. and parents don't support that because they don't believe it and they don't want it taught to their kids. so they told merrick garland sic the f.b.i. on them and as best i can tell the department of justice now plans to go after anybody caught with a copy of the constitution and let's start with parents at school board meetings. >> harris: you don't think it will stop now? it didn't seem like the attorney general was going to walk back anything or apologize for anything. what is happening with that? >> he is following orders here. some of the members of the woke
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left, the wokeers are upset. they called the white house, said you have to do something about this. they are getting in the way of our critical race theory agenda. you know, president biden is a nice guy but he is not running this show. he has delegated his authority to a bunch of wokeers and the white house and they call garland and said do it. >> harris: and there is no stopping it? >> i don't think so, no. we have bills and we'll continue to raise fresh hell every day and i want to encourage every parent out there to please get involved in your kids' education. if somebody gives you trouble, call me. we've got too many kids in this country who are more likely to grow up and go to prison than own a home or get married. it is because of lack of parental involvement. we ought to do everything we can to encourage it. if you want to get involved in
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your kids' education and somebody gives you trouble about it call me. >> harris: that was for everybody. amazing. you got a big job on the hill. i loved what you said looking for intelligence. we found some today. good to see you. >> thanks. >> harris: presidency on the line only 10 months in from his spending agenda to big elections in key states, a test for president biden and his power and it could be win or go home. we'll hear from him at any moment. keep your eye on the lectern. who better to weigh in on all that is going on with this administration than white house veteran ari fleischer? plus people will die. the vaccine mandate that could close 20% of firehouses in new york city and sideline thousands of police officers. the threat to public safety posed by forced vaccinations. >> i'm here to tell you that will be a catastrophic mistake
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we built the recycling system from the ground up, helping san francisco become the first city in the country to have a universal recycling and composting program for residents and businesses. but it all starts with you. let's keep making a differene together. forth. all of this when he hops on that plane later with this behind him. how did the huddle go on capitol hill today? he was there for over an hour with various factions of his now fractured political party trying to piece together what the white house is calling again a framework for a deal. is that bullet points, will we get to read it? aoc is upset because she hasn't read it. the progressive congresswoman, one of the squad. the daily caller with a piece titled next week will either be the best or worst of biden's presidency. it reads in part as the president attempts to herd
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democratic cats in washington he is also testing his electoral weight in key races in new jersey and virginia that will be decided when he returns from his overseas trip on climate change next week. he could also return to news of unexpected democratic defeats painting a blurry picture of the 2022 mid-term elections for the party. all right. talking about virginia now, the president was just there on tuesday trying to boost terry mccauliffe who has been governor before but now if trouble against the republican. he recently said that the president's lagging poll numbers and inability to close the deal on his own agenda is a drag on his governor's bid to become the next leader of virginia. ari fleischer, fox news contributor and former white house press secretary under bush 43. good to see you. ari, it seems cataclysmic for
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joe biden. these races go on without him. >> yeah. the good news for joe biden is they will hold this flight for him. he won't miss it. >> harris: that's the only good news? >> that's the good news for him today. the bad news, harris, i suspect he doesn't have an agreement on capitol hill if i'm reading the tea leaves properly. >> harris: what is that framework, then? it wouldn't be the truth or -- >> it's not a question of the truth. it is a question of if the democrats reacted to the framework in a favorable manner we'd already know it. leaks would be coming from the white house, looks like biden was successful on capitol hill and able to bring people together and closed the deal. this is how white houses are built to get the information out fast when it favors the president. we haven't heard that yet. the absence of quick leaks. i haven't seen them. i just think he has a maximum strength when he is in that room and every second he is out of the room that you aren't
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hearing he got the deal because people are taking time to think about it, they want to study it, it doesn't look like he closed the deal. >> harris: what happened to his strength and mojo? let's negate the part he would pull us all together. let's put it on a shelf. let's take out the part he made promises to the 81 million who voted to him. we won't talk about the 75 million who voted for trump. certainly it wasn't a mandate and he had 81 million votes. what happened? >> he misread what they wanted. they didn't want bernie sanders to be president or donald trump. i've been thinking long about how did we get to where we are today, joe biden went big in his words and he shouldn't have. he should have run straight up the middle and gone small and built from there and convinced the american people he was indeed a moderate, he was a uniter and could get things done. instead he really did try to
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implement a bernie sanders tax and spend agenda. let me remind you, this is very important. there is not a single cut being discussed by democrats. when they talk about they will have to take this out or take that out or go lower. every cent is new spending. not one penny of cuts. >> harris: alexandria ocasio-cortez, congresswoman from new york, why is she all upset and why are the progressives upset if it doesn't have cuts? >> great question. it is because in washington when one person comes along and says i want to spend $6 trillion and another person wants to spend $5 trillion. one persons wants a 5 and the other wants a 6 trillion increase and why the nation goes broke. it is always about can you spend more. the democrats are now are in the don't just stand there
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spend something phase of the biden presidency. and this is where i think they are finding they don't have support because they misread the mandate of the november election. it was not to go on a spending spree. it was just to be different from donald trump and what joe biden got wrong. >> harris: you say the nation goes broke. people say we have so much money. i think of the word broken, inflation out of control. broke and broken. we have a lot going on. the president gets ready to come out today and boy, are your words so powerful when you say every time he comes out of a room and doesn't get a win it is weaker and weaker. this president comes out and what kind of shape now? how would you describe the man who has now got to explain to the nation why he doesn't have a win but a framework but has to get on the plane to go to europe right away? >> if his pitch is that you can trust me, you have to put your faith in me, i can deliver joe manchin or get this done, you
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know, really that comes down to the democrats saying to themselves does the president who has a 42% job approval. is it worth us sticking out our neck to save him? i'm not for this or that. if joe biden had a 60% job approval rating you bet those democrats would have his back and they would support him. that's the trouble with being a weak president. weakness invites a lack of followership and where the biden presidency is now i'm afraid. >> harris: is he in trouble when he comes out? is this a sign, the fact that he will talk to all of us but not come out? i thought there would be some artwork here, maybe a pointer, big board. these are the things i got for you that i promised. remember, with trump it was promises kept. i got to israel when they were opening up the jerusalem/u.s. embassy moved it from tel aviv. in israel there were banners along the streets in jerusalem that said trump promises kept.
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the front page of the paper in jerusalem promises kept. i kept it. i still have it. >> yeah. frankly joe biden is not the most important voice for the american people to hear from today. the most important voice for the american people to hear are the leaders of the progressive caucus in the democratic party. are they on board? the moderates? are they on board? it is no longer the executive branch, it is up to the legislators. does he have the votes? it's not about biden making a pitch to the public anymore. it's about the vote counting on capitol hill for whatever the new framework may or may not be. i suspect most democrats haven't seen it and they haven't seen legislative language. it is impossible to vote on it yet. biden's voice is not the voice i'm waiting for. i say that with respect for the president. i'm waiting to hear the reaction of the people who can vote it up or down. that's where the action is. >> harris: we're already
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hearing. ocasio-cortez is not happy about the fact there is no text, nothing if writing to take a look at. it is fascinating. he is running almost 15 minutes behind schedule. the nation waits to see what the president will say. we probably won't hear much about this unless something happens while he is in glascow. until he gets back from the climate change. all of these domestic issues and the one we wait for will we see as ari describes him a weaker president now at the lectern, show us some strength and maybe he got the desperate win he needs? i know you'll stick around. thank you very much. we're awaiting the president. we'll bring it to you when it happens. vaccine mandates, that's another thing that's on the president's plate. those mandates are forcing thousands of first responders off the job nationwide and here in new york city firefighters are warning that people will die because of those vaccine
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mandates. jason rantz, you know he is from seattle, also seeing this play out, is in "focus" next. >> we're self-ish for being vocal. we're our children's biggest advocates. okay? >> harris: d.o.j. may be targeting parents. the california mom's plea to her school board is met with harsh words from the district president. there is more to come. you know what it is, a hot mic.
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know what he needs right now? he needs to see the legislative text and framework isn't there for him yet. he needs to see it. he needs to see what it is and whether or not it is going to be good and he says enough about it is known that he wants to see it improved. senator bernie sanders, you might call him the head of the progressives, right? the most senior member there. alexandria ocasio-cortez was a protege of bernie sanders, the squad. they aren't happy. they haven't seen the text and we haven't seen the president of the united states. this might be why he is 20 minutes late. because if you have a framework and the head of the group that's been described as burning it down behind the scenes is not happy, and now is going public with the fact that democrats, some of them are not happy with the framework, those on the far left, this is
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exactly what senator kennedy from louisiana moments ago was saying on this program. it's a mess over there. when the president does come out and talk, we'll show it to you. remember, ari fleischer said the only good news from the president no matter when he comes out they'll hold the plane, air force one for him to leave for europe for the climate change talks. we'll move on. new york city could lose up to 30% of its police and firefighters and if they don't get at least one covid shot by 5:00 p.m. eastern tomorrow, that's what's coming down. this after a judge denied a police union's request to block mayor bill deblasio's vaccine mandate. the union president is warning the resulting staffing shortages will have deadly consequences. >> i don't think the mayor understands what is going to happen on november 1st. there will be a catastrophic
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staffing shortage if 3500 firefighters that are currently unvaccinated are told to not go to work. we've been scraping together people to show up for work for the last several months just to keep firehouses open. you will see dozens and dozens of firehouses closed. you will see response times climb. it is inevitable. lives will be lost and that is irrefutable. >> harris: did you hear what the fire department of new york union president said? the number he spit out. 3,500 they have to fill quickly over vaccine mandates. the "new york post" has published and op-ed which says a police exodus would be catastrophic of epic and bloody proportions. fewer cops will certainly mean more killing and remember not one police officer was vaccinated before this year. they were among the few professionals who kept coming
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to work to protect the public at great personal risk. their reward? forced vaccination on pain of dismissal. jason rantz is in seattle. you are also seeing this issue play out if realtime. your take on what new york is about to face and it affects 8 plus million people in this metro area. >> yeah. what you guys will face is pretty straight forward actually. your city will be more dangerous than it was before, which for new york city is a pretty frightening thought. the nypd will be understaffed and do what is happening in seattle, which is lean on non-patrol officers to take those roles. >> harris: what does it look like? >> a detective working on a murder case is no longer working on that or domestic violence unit officer responds to 911 calls. the criminals they are trying to nab on other crimes are out
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there. firefighters. these shifts are 24 hours. what they will do is lean on everytime that is incredibly expensive. two, the burn-out rate is very, very high. you can't keep working 24-hour shifts over and over and over again. so to say this is catastrophic, bloody epic proportions is possibly an understatement with what new york is about to experience. >> harris: this is what we're experiencing now. the pictures on the left of your screen are live. the fire department of new york is strong today in the streets of new york with their message. and their message has to do -- we should point out many of these people are vaccinated. this is not about whether or not they want to get the vaccine. this is more about whether or not they want to be told that their own immunity might not count since many of them worked without a vaccine and put their lives on the line and they
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don't -- that's not even part of the conversation. you almost gave up your life. you had covid. you lost some. you came back and now you are here and we want you to do what we say so says the mayor of new york. and look, that's what the president of the united states is saying, too. they are saying so much they are just not listening. as we watch the fdny protests in new york this is people in brooklyn. when you lose brooklyn, when you lose new york, democratic leadership, what does this tell you? >> it tells you they are not really caring about the community. they are ideologues who believe in vaccination at all cost. a lot of these folks are vaccinated they are standing up for medical and bodily autonomy and there is natural immunity. they want to pretend it doesn't exist and not have conversations about what is probably the second most important thing to be talking
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about during this pandemic outside of the vaccine and instead of actually having those conversations they try to pulley you and shout you down and smear you as anti-vax. it is a lazy smear meant to get people to acquiesce. i'm glad people are pushing bad. we're not anti-vax. i'm vaccinated. there is a good argument to be made for most people to get the vaccine if they want it in consultation with their doctors. it is not anti-vax to be anti-mon date. it is pro-freedom to be anti-mandate and that's the leading issue here. whether we talk about new york city or chicago, san francisco or seattle, that's what we are hearing on the ground. this is a slippery slope. let's say you get to the 100% vaccination rate they want. okay, if covid doesn't go away. it won't go away after that. then what will they demand? as a condition of employment what will they demand? why are we okay with that? >> harris: these are all
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excellent questions. while we watch something that the president really triggered with his own flip-flop on the issue of vaccine mandates and with the threats of companies as small as those with 100 employees having to put this in place. now we're seeing it feather out across the nation. what we're not saying is the president of the united states. the longer he makes the nation wait, it is building behind the scenes for him. an issue just like this, everything starts to percolate in his absence. jason, thank you very much. we're keeping our eye on the lectern inside the east room at the white house. the president of the united states now has heard from senator bernie sanders through the media i would imagine. because the man went on tv to say it. we have a little bit of that video coming up right after the break. senator sanders said the framework needs to be improved. so the very thing the president was going to boldly come out
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and announce is broken. stay close. st mortgage rates you've been waiting for are here. the newday two and a quarter refi has the company's lowest rate in history. 2.25% with an apr of 2.48. save thousands every year. plus there's no money out of pocket and no up front fees. newday is holding the line on interest rates so every veteran family can save. >> harris: president joe biden joined by kamala harris. let's watch. >> president biden: after months of tough and thoughtful negotiations i think we have an -- i know we have an historic economic framework. a framework to create millions of jobs, grow the economy, invest in our nation and our people, turn the climate crisis into an opportunity and put us on a path not only to compete but to win the economic
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competition for the 21st century against china and every other major country in the world. it is fiscally responsible, fully paid for. 17 nobel prize winners in economics have said it will lower the inflationary pressures on the economy. over the next 10 years it will not add to the deficit at all. it will actually reduce the deficit according to the economists. i want the thank my colleagues in the congress for their leadership. we spent hours and hours and hours over months and months working on this. no one got everything they wanted including me. but that's what compromise is. that's consensus. and that's what i ran on. i have long side compromise and consensus are the only way to get big things done in a democracy. important things done for the country. i know it's hard. i know how deeply people feel
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about the things that they fight for. but this framework includes historic investments in our nation and in our people. any single element of the framework would fundamentally be viewed as a fundamental change in america. taken together, they are truly important. i'll have more to say after i return from the critical meetings in europe this week. but for now let me lay out a few points. first, we face -- i apologize for saying this again. we face an inflection point as a nation. for most of the 20th century we led the world by a significant margin because we invested in our people. not only our roads and our highways and our bridges, but in our people, in our families. we didn't just build an interstate highway system. we built a highway to the sky. reinvetioned the win the space race and we won. we were also among the first to provide access to free
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education for all americans beginning back in the late 1800s, that decision alone to invest in our children and families was a major part of why we were able to lead the world for much of the 20th century. but somewhere along the way we stopped investing in ourselves, investing in our people. america is still the largest economy in the world. we still have the most productive workers and innovative mind in the world. but we risk losing our edge as a nation. our infrastructure used to be rated the best in the world. today according to the world economic forum we rank 13th in the world. we used to lead the world in educational achievement. now the organization for economic cooperation and development ranks america 35th out of the 37 major countries when it comes to investing in early childhood education and care. we know how our children start
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impacts significantly on how they'll finish. we can't be competitive in the 21st century if we continue to slide. why i've said all along we need to build america from the bottom up and middle out. not from the top down. the trickle down economics that's always failed us. i can't think of a single time when the middle class has done well that the wealthy haven't done very well. many times, including now when the wealthy and super wealthy do very well and the middle class don't do well. that's why i proposed the investments congress is now considering in two critical pieces of legislation. positions i ran on as president, positions i announced when i laid out in a joint session of congress what my eric i can agenda was. these are not about left versus right or moderate versus progressive or anything else that pits americans against one another. this is about competitiveness
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versus complacency. it is about expanding opportunity, not opportunity denied. it's about leading the world or letting the world pass us by. today with my democratic colleagues we have a framework for my build back better initiative and here is how it will fundamentally change the lives of millions of people for the better. millions of you are in the so-called sandwich generation who feel financially squeezed by raising a child and caring for an aging parent. about 820,000 seniors in america and people with disabilities have applied for medicaid and they are on a waiting list right now to get home care. they need some help. they don't have to be kicked out of their home but they need a little help getting around. having their meals made occasionally for them. they don't want to put them in
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nursing homes not because of the cost but it's a matter of dignity. they want to stay in their homes. but it's hard. you are just looking for an answer. so your parents can keep living independently with dignity. for millions of families in america this issue is the most important issue they are facing. it's personal. so here is what we are going to do. we will expand services for seniors so families can get help from well-trained and well-paid professionals to help them take care of their parents at home to cook meals for them, to get their groceries for them, help them get around, help them live in their own home with the dignity they deserve to be afforded. quite frankly what we found is that this is more popular as anything else we're proposing. the american people understand the need. it is a matter of dignity and
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pride for our parents. 30 years ago we ranked number seven among advanced economies in the world as a share of women working. you know where we are today? ranked 23rd. 23rd. 7 to 23. once again our competitors are investing and we're standing still. today there are nearly 2 million women in america not working today simply because they can't afford childcare. typical family spends $11,000 a year on childcare. some states $14,500 a year per child. we'll make sure that all families earning less than $300,000 a year will pay no more than 7% of their income for childcare. for a family making $100,000 a year, that will save them more than $5,000 on childcare.
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this is a fundamental game changer for families and our economy as more parents, especially women, can get back to work and work in the workforce. i'm looking at a lot of significant press people. a lot of them are working mothers and they know what it costs. i remember when i got to the senate i lost my wife and daughter in an accident, my two boys. i started commuting 250 miles a day because i had my mom and my dad and my brother and my sister to help me take care of my kids because i couldn't afford childcare and i was getting $42,000 a year, a serious salary. we've also extended historic middle class tax cut for parents. that is the expanded child tax credit we passed for the american rescue plan. what that means is for folks at home they are getting $300 a month for every child under the
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age of 6, $200 for every child under the age of 18. the money is already a life changer for so many working families. help cut child poverty in half this year according to experts. that's not all it does. it changes the whole dynamic for working parents. in the past if you paid taxes and had a good income, you could deduct under the tax code $2,000 per child from the taxes you owed. how many families do you know a cashier, waiter, healthcare workers, who never got the benefit of the full tax break because they didn't have that much to deduct? it wasn't refundable. so either came off your tax bill or you didn't get full credit. why should if somebody making $500,000 a year or $150,000 or $200,000 get to write it off their taxes? and the people who need the
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help even more don't have that much tax to pay, they don't get the benefit and they have the same cost of raising their children. 80% of those left out were working parents who just didn't make enough money. that's why in the american rescue plan we didn't just expand the amount of the middle class tax cut, we also made it refundable. this framework will make it permanent refundable making sure the families who need it get full credit for it. we'll make sure every 3 and 4-year-old child in america will go to high-quality pre-school. that's part of the legislation i just brought up to the congress. studies show that when we put 3 and 4-year-olds in school, not daycare, school, we increase by up to 47% the chance that that child, no matter what their background, will be able to
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earn a college degree. as my wife jill says any country that out educates us with out compete us. it can take us from 12 years to 14 years of universal education in america and make investments in higher education by increasing pell grants to help students from lower income families attend community colleges and four year schools. and we invest in historically backed universities, colleges and universities, minority serving institutions and travel colleges to make sure every young student has a shot at a good paying job in the future. this framework extends tax credits to lower premiums for folks on -- who are in affordable care act for another three years. from four million folks in the 12 states that haven't expanded medicaid this framework will
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enable you to get affordable coverage and medicare will now cover the cost of hearing aids and hearing checkups. this framework also makes the most significant investment to deal with the climate crisis ever, ever happened beyond any other advanced nation in the world. over a billion metric tons of emission reductions, at least 10 times bigger on climate than any bill that has ever passed before and enough to position us for a 50 to 52% emission reduction by the year 2030. we'll do it in a way to grow domestic industries and create good paying union jo, address longstanding environmental injustices as well. tax credit to help people weatherize homes to use less energy. install solar panels. help business produce more clean energy. and when paired with the
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bipartisan infrastructure bill it will truly transform this nation. historic investments in passenger rail. everybody says biden is a rail guy. that's true. passenger rail and freight rail and public transit will make hundreds of thousands -- take hundreds of vehicles off the road saving millions of barrels of oil. everybody knows all the studies show if you can get from point a to point b in electric rail you won't drive your car. you will take the rail service. we also learned that in most major cities in america, when minority populations the jobs are now out of town. roughly 60% of the folks don't have vehicles so they need to have a means to get out of town to their jobs to be on time. that's what will will do that like it did for detroit. 95% of the 840,000 school buses
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in america run on diesel. every day more than 25 million children and thousands of bus drivers breathe polluted air on the way to and from school from the deisel exhaust. we'll replace thousands of these with electric school buses that have big batteries underneath and that are good for the climate. i went down to one of the manufacturing facilities. saw them. got in one, drove them. they don't -- they're not expending any pollution in the air. we'll build out the first-ever national network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations all across the country so when you are buying an electric vehicle and you get credit for buying it. when you buy an electric vehicle you can go all the way across america on a single tank of gas, you plug it in. 500,000 of them. these stations along the way. we'll get off the sidelines on
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manufacturing solar panels and wind farms and electric vehicles with targeted manufacturing credits. you manufacture you get a credit for doing it. these will help grow the supply chains in communities too often left behind and we'll reward countries for paying good wages for companies i should say for good wages and for sourcing their materials from here in the united states. that means tens of millions of panels and turbines doubling the number of electric vehicles we have on the road within three years. we'll be able to sell and export these products and technologies to the rest of the world and creating thousands more jobs because we are once again going to be the innovators. we'll also make historic investments in environmental cleanup and remediation. that means putting people to work in good-paying jobs at prevailing wage capping hundreds of thousands of
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abandoned wells and gas wells that need to be capped because they are leaking things that hurt the air. putting a stop to the methane leaks and pipelines. protecting the health of our communities. it is a big deal and we'll build up our resilience for the next superstorm, drought, wildfires and hurricanes that represent a blinking code red for america world. last year alone, these types of extreme weather events you've all been covering an eval witnessed some of you have been caught in the middle of have caused $99 billion in damage the united states in the last year. $99 billion. and we are not spending money to deal with this? it is costing us significantly.
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in pittsburgh, i met a electrical worker who climbs up on those power lines in the middle of storms to transform us and keep the lights on when the storms hit. he calls himself 100% union guy. his job is dangerous. he said, "i don't want my kids growing up in a world where went the threat of climate change change of their heads." folks, we all have that obligation. in obligation to our children and grandchildren. the bipartisan infrastructure bill is most significant since we've built the highway system and won the space recent decades ago. this is about rebuilding the arteries of her economy. cross-country now, there are 45 million bridges and 173,000 miles of roads that are in poor condition. some of the bridges you don't even take a chance of growing across and shut
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