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Congressman Bob Latta (R-OH5) provided the following statement in response to President Biden’s Joint Address to Congress this evening: 

“As we take a moment to reflect on the past 100 days, it is abundantly clear President Biden and Vice President Harris’ calls for bipartisan collaboration to tackle our greatest challenges were only talking points. President Biden’s speech tonight even touched on many of those rhetorical themes – unity, cooperation, and bipartisanship. Instead of keeping his word to work across the aisle to provide the American people with lasting solutions to the issues they’re facing, the President’s agenda thus far has been polarizing, radical, and devoid of any real conversations with Republicans.

“During his first day in office, President Biden eliminated thousands of energy jobs in the United States and threatened our energy security. His Administration used your tax dollars to bail out liberal states and cities under the guise of pandemic relief. The Vice President has yet to be seen at our southern border even after being named the official responsible for responding to the urgent crisis at our southern border. And unfortunately, the proposed policies that the President highlighted tonight will only make matters worse for the American people.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has presented substantial challenges to our communities, and it continues to severely impact small businesses. Under the previous Administration, we made significant strides to combat the coronavirus through Operation Warp Speed, and we helped support American workers and small businesses so they could survive during this trying time. 

“Legislation 31 years in the making was signed into law to reform our broken tax code and provide needed tax relief for middle class families, grow the economy, and create jobs. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act prioritized the needs of the American people. It resulted in record low unemployment and wage growth not seen in a generation. Now, even while we are recovering from a global pandemic, President Biden is actively working undo all of this progress. His proposals will increase taxes, hurt American businesses, slash jobs here at home, and drive American jobs overseas. But that’s not all.

“President Biden unveiled an infrastructure proposal with a price tag upwards of 2 trillion dollars. Less than twenty-five percent of that proposal is focused on repairing our roads, highways, bridges, airways, waterways, ports, and improving broadband access for Americans across the country. The remaining funds support extremist Green New Deal programs that will eliminate jobs, destroy our energy industry, and hurt families.

“Tonight, the President also sounded tone-deaf on the crisis at our border. Earlier this month, I traveled to the southern border to see for myself just how bad things really are – and let me tell you, it was shocking. The surge of migrants at the border is unprecedented. In March, more than 172,000 migrants were apprehended at the border – a 71% increase from a year ago. Customs and Border Patrol expect the number of encounters to climb to more than 200,000 in April. The problem is only getting worse, yet the Administration refuses to work with Republicans to secure our borders and stop this humanitarian crisis. Even with this humanitarian crisis occurring on their watch, neither President Biden nor Vice President Harris have traveled to the border to see what is happening for themselves. It’s a dereliction of duty to ignore it.

“Future generations are going to look back at this time in history and realize it is not what the Biden/Harris Administration did for them, but instead, it is what they did to them. It is our kids and grandkids who are going to pay the price for this Administration’s costly actions, and I remain committed to doing everything I can to fight for a more responsible and collaborative government on their behalf.”

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