Because without him, I would not be able to say that we have delivered anything to you
late late.
But I was so happy to know that just after two years, this president has invested and
he's invested in the people that I want him to invest in, those people who are the least
lost in the left out.
That is why I'm so happy that in just six months, and hopefully we can get the majority back
in the house, we passed the child tax credit and cut child poverty in half.
That's a miracle, y'all.
Said it couldn't be done, but we demonstrated that it could be done.
I was on the science committee when Democrats passed the Chifson Science Act.
And we had so many disruptions in the supply chain, and now we're going to be able to
build it in America again and to create those jobs.
I'm going to tell you, I've seen firsthand the benefits that the Chifson Science Act
and increasing the U.S. manufacturing, the impact that it has had on Milwaukee, I took
a picture and had a good conversation with a handsome BMW, a formerly incarcerated young
man who was now an electrician journeyman, a BMW, a black man working.
Oh, yeah, handsome, ready to marry somebody and give them a good middle-class life.
The bipartisan infrastructure bill, I mean, I am so excited about that, because we have
lead pipes in this city, and our children are being poisoned at a level of 2,500 cases
a year.
It would have taken us 70 years to get rid of these lead pipes, and not to mention the
jobs that it's going to be created to dig these lead pipes.
So thank you, Joe Biden.
We've been the largest investment in green energy, something that young people are very,
very concerned about, and that is one of the major, and you can go to the port of Milwaukee
to our precious Lake Michigan and see that money in action.
It's just one of one example.
You know, the Dow Jones is breaking records, the GDP is booming, you heard the mayor say
that unemployment is at an all-time low, wages are rising, but I'm so glad that we have people
from the clergy here today as I look around and recognize faces.
Because too often, we have been asked to walk by faith and not by sight.
And we want to know today from Joe Biden how specifically his initiatives are going
to favor the black community and black businesses and small businesses.
How Bidenomics is going to turn around our fortunes.
And so my two minutes is up.
But I want y'all to know that I love you very much, and Joe Biden, y'all, is a friend
to this community.
I'm honored that he is coming here to take his vows in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
I want another round of applause for that Gwen Moore unbelievable human being.
I always hate following her, but it is an honor always a follower too.
It's also an honor and a pleasure to welcome President Joe Biden to Wisconsin, and I want
to thank the folks at the Wisconsin Black Chamber of Commerce for having us do that visit right
here today.
I always believe folks, and I know the folks here agree that small businesses are the
hearts of our local communities, and they're huge economic drivers too, making up 99% of
businesses in our state, our small businesses, and they employ almost half of Wisconsin
workers.
So here in Wisconsin, if you have a great business idea and the willingness to work
hard to make it happen, we want to help and support you every step of the way.
That's exactly what we've been working to do over the past five years, and it's in
due part to Joe Biden and the federal partners we've been able to do just that.
Together with President Biden and our tremendous partners at the federal level like Wisconsin's
favorite senator, Tammy Baldwin, and the one and only Congresswoman Gwen Moore.
We've been able to support our state's small businesses in the community for the last few
years, including our state's diverse small business community.
An analysis, people took a look at our federal aid received under the American Rescue Plan
Act signed by President Biden, which not only won, not won, Republican and Congress,
but supported by the way, Wisconsin was a top state in the country for businesses
and aid directed to over to directly to economic development.
That is really a good place for Wisconsin.
Our focus in Wisconsin coming out of the pandemic has been really quite simple.
Let's rebuild our economy from the ground up, starting with our small businesses, our main
street, and the hearts of our community.
So we've helped more than 9,400 small businesses and nonprofits open and expand their operations
in all of 72 Wisconsin counties, especially here in Milwaukee County, through our successful
main street bounce back program.
That program was funded by the American Rescue Plan Act brought to us by Joe Biden.
They had offered $10,000 grants to business owners moving into vacant storefronts.
And of these, more than 9,400 small businesses, approximately 70 percent of them, 70 percent
of that number.
Do the math.
They're owned by women, veterans, folks with disabilities, LGBTQ individuals, and folks
of color.
And through programs like our Diverse Business Assistant and Diverse Business Investment
Grant Programs, also funded by the American Rescue Plan Act, we directed more than $115
million to Diverse Chambers, like the Wisconsin Black Chamber of Commerce and Community Development
Financial Institutions.
So I am proud of the progress our businesses may have made, but as always, we still have
lots of work to do.
So together with President Biden, his administration, and our federal partners in Congress, we
will continue to do our part to ensure that Wisconsin's small businesses will succeed.
We'll continue to serve the strive for an economy that works for everyone, no matter
what the race, background, or zip code might be.
We continue to make smart, strategic investments available thanks to President Biden and Democrats
in the Congress to keep expanding access to critical high-speed Internet in Wisconsin.
We'll continue to invest in fixing our roads, bridges, and infrastructure, and we'll continue
building the kind of future we want to see for Wisconsin kids, families, and communities
with President Biden at the lead.
So thank you so much.
Have a great meeting.
Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats as the program will begin
momentarily.
Please welcome the owner of Hero Plumbing, Rashawn Spivy.
Good afternoon, my name is Rashawn Spivy, Milwaukee is my home growing up my mom worked
multiple jobs to make ends meet, and one of her favorite jobs was working as a secretary
for Jim Nelson Plumbing service.
When I was young, I went to work with my mom, and sometimes the owner of the business would
allow me to help him out.
Starting at age 12, I rode on a truck when he did plumbing jobs around the city.
This piqued my interest, and I decided I wanted to become a plumber.
When I was 20, I attended the Milwaukee Area Technical College and then completed an apprenticeship
with Plumbers Local 75.
After years of hard work, I achieved my dream of becoming a master plumber, and I opened
my own business, Hero Plumbing.
Among Plumbers, if a job takes two days to do, and you get it done in a half of a day,
we call you a hero.
As we say, heroes get too much done.
That's what I wanted the people of my business to be, heroes, specializing in getting too
much done.
That's why I'm so honored to be here today.
President Biden's support of Black-owned businesses has helped us live up to the hero
name.
Thanks to his investments, we've been able to replace 600 lateral pipes across the city,
especially a child care center.
Not only has our business grown, but we're helping to save our community.
As the same goes, the plumber protects the health of the nation.
Earlier today, President Biden stopped by Hero Plumbing, which is right next door to
the plumbing business I worked at as a kid.
I never imagined my dream of becoming a plumber would have led me to meet the President or
the United States President.
This is what President Biden's administration is all about, helping us all become part of
an economy that works for everyone so that dreams can be achieved with dignity.
It is with great honor and humility that I introduce the 46th President of the United
States.
President Joe Biden.
It's great to be back.
You know, President Biden's heard me say, this is the one to follow me, that my dad had
an expression.
If you have a seat, take one.
If you don't, I understand a couple of me.
It's in the stage of me.
My dad used to have an expression.
He said, Joe, you're a job.
I mean, this sincerely.
There's about a lot more than a paycheck.
It's about your dignity.
It's about respect.
It's about being able to get a kid in the eye and say, honey, this is going to be okay.
That's what we're all about.
That's what we all want to do.
And Rashawn, thank you for that introduction and thank you for doing what my dad always
worried about, whether he'd be able to have those jobs with a little bit of dignity.
I want to thank my colleague, Governor Evers, who you're worried of, one of the best governors
in the country.
He's sitting next to Congress.
He's sitting next to Congress a little more.
Stand up, Congresswoman.
As she can tell you, whatever she tells me, I do.
It's great to see you, kiddo.
And also, I'm on Mayor Johnson.
Thanks for the passport and in the city.
I appreciate it very much.
And County Executive Prowley is here.
And I want to thank Senator a good friend of mine, Tammy Ball, who couldn't be here
today.
I want to thank everyone here at Milwaukee's Black Chamber of Commerce for your partnership
across the board on everything we've been working on.
I come from a state that has the eighth largest black population in the country.
And as they say, the saying goes, where I come, you've brought me to the dance early
on.
You're proof that black small businesses with the talent, integrity, and ingenuity
are the engines and the glue, the whole communities together.
I mean, that's necessarily your whole communities together.
You're the one who sponsored the little league teams.
You're the one that involved in the church events.
You're the one that hold the community together and you keep it going.
You keep it moving.
And every new business opening is a vote for hope.
Just hope.
Hope.
You know, you're making America economy stronger in our nation and more competitive.
I'm here today to talk about something that doesn't get enough attention.
I'm here to celebrate the progress we're making to support black small businesses here and
around the country.
Black small businesses grow everything benefits, the community benefits, everyone benefits,
not a joke, and it gives hope and prospects for people.
Since Kamala and I entered office, America has filed a record number in less than three
years, 15 million new job, a new application to start a new business, 15 million.
It's led to the fastest growth of black business ownership in over 30 years.
Across the country, wages for workers are up.
Black wealth is a record 60 percent since the pandemic.
So many of you, look, and I mean this is from the bottom of my heart, we're just getting
started.
We're just getting started.
So many of you had the vision and took the risk to open businesses and you bet on yourself.
Together we're transforming an economy by investing in all of America and all Americans.
When I said, when I ran, if I was elected, I'd represent everyone, blue, red, no matter
what color the state was, wherever it was, we'd recommend because think about it.
Think of all the businesses that you know about throughout the Midwest and back in my
way as well.
That closed down because you had corporations decide and they get cheaper labor across the
sea.
You can move somewhere else.
So they sent the jobs overseas and brought the product back home.
And we changed that supply chain.
We're sending, we're having the jobs here and sending product overseas.
And from the time I got involved in public life, I've only been around a few years.
Oh, bless me, Father.
Anyway, we're doing by building an economy from the middle out in the bottom up, not
the top down, not a whole lot trickled down on my dad's kitchen table with a top down
economy.
But when you're middle from the middle, when you've increased the middle class, the poor
have a shot and the wealthy still do very well.
The middle class does well and we all do well.
That's what we call biteonomics.
And by the way, so far, we've created 14 million new jobs, more jobs in three years
than any president has created in four years in history.
This is a fundamental break from trickled down economics, economics that supercharged
my, well, it was supercharged by my predecessor, the guy who thinks we're polluting the blood
of Americans these days.
He cut taxes for the wealthy and big corporations, shipped good paying jobs overseas, shrank public
investment in infrastructure and education.
We used to have the number one infrastructure in the world, now we're number 16 or 17.
We're changing that.
We're hollowed out communities, leaving too many Americans behind.
As a cycle, folks on 33th Street Carter here in Milwaukee know well.
The scenario where we came to the backbone of Milwaukee's industrial right mic, 10,000
black people migrated, 10,000 migrated from the south to the middle of the country to
Milwaukee for good paying manufacturing jobs.
Then decades of discrimination in trickled down economics left communities like this
one behind.
But today we're making sure Milwaukee is coming back and all of Milwaukee coming back.
In Milwaukee business applications are up 70 percent compared before the pandemic.
The share of black people employed in Milwaukee in 2022 was the highest in more than a decade.
But the investments aren't just about jobs, the investments we're making offer opportunity
hope to communities to fully participate in the economy.
I vowed that we'd invest in all America, and that's what we're doing.
We're leaving no one behind, no one need be left behind.
Let me give you a clear example.
We all know, as my introducer told me, told you guys, we all know, exposure to lead water
pipes that's hazardous to our health, especially to children's health, can damage the brains
and kidneys for real.
That exposure disproportionately affects low-income communities and disproportionately
affects people of color.
This is the United States of America, for God's sake.
Everyone should be able to turn out a false and know whatever their drink was clean and
pure and not have to worry about it.
Through the historic bipartisan infrastructure law, my administration is investing $15 billion
to replace every lead pipe in every community in this country.
And our goal, our goal is to do that.
I want to thank Kamala, I want to thank Kamala for leading this effort.
But you know, in the United States, Senator Ron Johnson voted against his law.
Well, I'll tell you what, with your help, the great governor and congresswoman in the
state, they already received $130 million to do this work so far.
Before I came to Milwaukee, Milwaukee was slated to take over 60 years to replace the
lead pipes.
But last month, we proposed a new rule.
It's going to require the water systems in Milwaukee to be fully replaced with every
one of them within 10 years, 10 years instead of 6 months.
Think of the lives, say, think of the jobs and opportunities for small business owners
like Rishan replacing lead pipes in homes and daycare centers and schools.
We're just getting started.
And so we are today announcing Milwaukee will be one of 22 communities in the country competing
for tens of millions of dollars in federal grants to grow small businesses, create good
paying jobs and build factories in the future.
It matters.
I'm also increasing the share of federal contract dollars going to small, disadvantaged businesses
from what was roughly 10 percent when I came to office to 25 to 50 percent.
Here's our work.
Back in the 30s, it wasn't just that Roosevelt talked about unions being supported.
They also had a rule of the past that very few presidents, including democrats, paid much
attention to it, that every dollar a president gets to spend, for example, the appropriation
committee and the congress passes redoing decks of aircraft carriers.
The president gets to pick who does that job, who does that job, all those federal programs.
Well, guess what?
The vast majority are supposed to be all American and supposed to be all American products.
And guess what?
Hardly anybody paid attention.
But I'm paying attention.
It's about we're investing in America and American workers.
In 2022 alone, we ordered nearly $70 billion to small disadvantaged businesses because
of that law.
Through the America Rescue Plan and other law that your distinguished senator voted against,
we invested nearly $80 million in Wisconsin for the state Small Business Credit Initiative,
helping countless small businesses grow.
Through the Small Business Administration, we've delivered $50 billion in capital this
past year to small businesses across the country, doubling the number and the value of black
owned small businesses since 2020.
I know that's a lot.
I'm talking to the black chamber of commerce for thanking them for helping small business
owners learn how to benefit from these transformative investments.
I used to have a friend named Pete McLaughlin, who was a great ball player at Providence
College, and he used to say, you've got to know how to know, you've got to know how
to know.
And that's what I want to thank the chamber here for teaching people how to know what's
available to them.
All this groundbreaking work is producing groundbreaking results.
Record job creation, historic economic growth.
We have among the lowest inflation rates of any major economy on this earth.
We're fighting a lower cost to give folks just a little bit more breeding room than
my dad used to say.
But let's be clear.
Republicans are against so many critical actions that help work in the middle class
people, especially black Americans.
Just remember how the pandemic hit black businesses especially hard.
How my predecessor on his watch, women and minority owned small businesses, found themselves
last in line to access an emergency relief through programs like the Paycheck Protection
Program.
My watch, energy and emergency relief went to minority owned businesses first, not last.
We also, when I came to office, we cut black child poverty in half because of the child
poverty.
As I tried to extend it, every single Republican Congress voted against continuing the program,
but I'm not giving up till we get it back.
And by the way, all the data shows it saves the economy money.
The spending on child poverty saves money in health care, educate whole range of things.
This is not down the drain.
It generates growth.
We drafted an I signed a law, a law that will lower prescription drug costs significantly
for all Americans.
And I was at a town meeting in Northern Virginia, and I was holding a meeting instance two years
ago.
I've been fighting big farmer for a long time.
You know, if you buy, if you go to every year, your provider, any drug you have to take,
any prescription drug, and you decide you're going to buy it here in Milwaukee, or you're
going to buy it in Toronto, Canada, or Paris, France, or Budapest, guess what?
You're going to pay two to three times as much for the prescription.
Same company, same American manufacturer, same thing, because Medicare pays for it,
in most cases.
And guess what?
We're not, just if you're at the VA and you get the prescription drug, they negotiate
the price with the pharmaceutical company.
Well, we passed laws earlier, wave on them, and fight for over 35 years, to say you can't
negotiate, Medicare can't negotiate for drug prices for, and by the way, that's how they
make an enormous amount of money.
And by the way, every one of my Republican colleagues voted against this one, and now
they're trying to cut Medicare, trying to cut Medicaid, and Social Security.
Your own Senator Johnson calls Social Security a, quote, Ponzi Skeeter.
Are you kidding me?
You know, from the time you get your first paycheck, you pay into Social Security, your
whole life.
These are the same Republicans on an act of tax cuts, overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy
to the tune of $2 trillion additional deficit.
There's also something else that's happening.
There's some in this country who are waging a full-on attack of black economic opportunity.
The denying economic opportunity when it comes to higher education, starting a business,
keeping businesses open, that's how you generate economic opportunity.
You educate people.
And folks, by the way, I went to the Supreme Court to eliminate student debt that was out
there.
And guess what?
The Supreme Court rolled against it, but I still got 136 million people's debt relieved.
Because guess what?
The interest they're paying on that debt is something preventing them from buying a home,
starting to visit all those things.
Now, that's on top of easing black history and banning books, erasing black history and
banning books.
Did you ever think you'd live in a country, now all kinds of things are growing up, where
we're banning books, book banning in grade schools and high schools, I think it's unconscionable.
These attacks hurt all Americans because investing in black economic prosperity lifts everybody
up.
You know, we always believe diversity is our strength as a nation.
I don't believe, as the former president said again yesterday, that immigrants are
polluting our blood.
It conned me and our nation are stronger when we're tapping to the full range of talents
in this nation.
My administration is going to continue to fight these attacks because everyone deserves a
fair shot.
Just a shot.
Let me close with this.
You know, for all we've done, the real heroes of this story are you, the American people,
not a joke, not a joke.
Hard-working people like Grishan, a hero plumbing, here in Milwaukee, in the thousands
of towns all across America, there's a piece, thousands of stories of revival and renewal
hope and optimism because people aren't giving up.
Pride in your work and your family and your town, pride in this nation, that's what I
see no matter where I go in this country.
That's why I mean this from the bottom of my heart, I've never been more optimistic about
America's prospects, America's future than I am today.
You just have to remember who we are.
We are the United States of America.
There is nothing beyond our capacity if we work together, if we work together.
That's – and by the way, as I said, we're the only country in the world that out of
every crisis we've come out stronger than we went in.
Remember, remember who you are.
God bless you all and may God protect our truth.
Thank you.
I'm so glad that you're here.