1200 field offices in every congressional district on the face of the federal government. people go there at particular times of vulnerability. them a have just lost a spouse and have to claim survivors benefits. they might have found themselves so disabled they can no longer work. aging -- what you want in those situations is compassionate care with when the administration has the time to work with people. the workers at the social security administration are extremely dedicated. >> you can finish watching at

c-span.org or with the c-span now video app. we are taking your life to los angeles for remarks by president biden on inflation and the economy. >> mr. president, elected officials, distinguished guests, fellow americans, brothers and sisters, good morning. welcome to the port of los angeles and san pedro bay. it is my great privilege as a rank and file member of the international longshore and warehouse union iowu to say a few words. it is made up of men and women from every race, religion, culture and background. the very fabric of america itself. our members are ordinary

citizens who do extraordinary work. morning after morning, and night after night. in the past two years, members helped these world-class ports of los angeles and long beach repeatedly shatter cargo volume records. [applause] in 2021, despite unprecedented obstacles, over 20 million crossed the docks. a debt of gratitude is owed to our international, coast and local officers for implementing protocols that help keep our members safe.

despite those extraordinary efforts, many brothers and sisters did fall ill. some, severely. some with lasting consequences. and too many paid the ultimate price. we will take a moment of silence in their honor, please. thank you. president franklin delano roosevelt, who sailed aboard the very ship we are standing on, once said, the test of our progress is not whether we had more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough to those who have too little.

that sentiment is at the heart of unionism. to give ordinary workers the means to work with dignity and hold their heads high knowing that their contribution to society is appreciated and respected. at this time, we would like to thank all of the other essential workers who stood shoulder to shoulder with us during these trying times. [applause] together, we will continue to rise to the occasion and overcome every obstacle and hardship that presents itself. among the many difficulties of 2022, there were a few bright spots. and none shone more brightly than the election of joe biden.

[applause] the men and women of the ilwu are grateful for his courageous leadership here and abroad. his commitment to strengthening the role of labor within the economy and for upholding justice and democracy at every opportunity. without further ado, it is my distinct honor to introduce the 46th president of the united states, joe biden. [applause] pres. biden: as we used to say in the united states senate, a point of personal privilege. i think that sal must be let in

closely to my friend from high school. you think i am kidding. thank you, sal. before i begin, i want to say a few words very briefly about the january 6 hearings that were highlighted last night. the insurrection on january 6 is one of the darkest chapters in our nation's history, a brutal assault on our nation's history, a brutal attack on law-enforcement, some losing their lives. it is important the american people understand what truly happened and to understand the same forces that led january 6 remain work today. it is about democracy itself. we have to protect our democracy. i know it sounds corny to say it. i never thought it was going to

be this straightforward of a challenge before. the rule of law matters in democracy. we are seeing how the battle for the soul of america has been far from won. we can unite and defend this nation, democrat and republican, allowed no one to place a dagger at the throat of our democracy. that is what those hearings are all about. you will hear a lot more. i did not get to watch them because i was doing other business. there is a lot going on. the reason i am here, thank you, sal, and thank you to gene and the port of los angeles. thank you to the port of long beach. and thank you to mayor garcetti of los angeles and the mayor of long beach who i soon expect to be the congressman of long beach. [applause] you guys did a heck of a job and

i cannot hear a couple years ago to try to get things moving. everybody, management, labor, leaders. as well as, at the time, we also had governor newsom pushing hard, as well. we have two excellent centers, alex, you do not look any worse for the wear. you are looking awful good. you have always looked good, especially compared to these guys and me. thank you for the fire you bring. you bring some fire to this. i mean it. it is in your heart. we had a meeting together. we have to change it. we cannot give up. we have to turn this corner. john, i cannot -- you are the real deal.

i will not get you in trouble, but thank you for sticking up for me. we have a labor secretary, i am his translator, he is marty walsh from boston. [laughter] he always has your back. i had an uncle who said, joey, you are labor from belt buckle to shoe sole. today i would like to speak about my economic priority. finding inflation. i understand americans are anxious and they are anxious for good reason. i was raised in a household when the price of gasoline rose, it was a discussion at the table. we have never seen anything like putin's tax on food and gas. americans should understand our economy has unique strength that we can build on.

the job market is the strongest it has been since world war ii notwithstanding inflation. we added another 390,000 jobs last month. 8,700,000 jobs since i took office. an all-time record, never that many jobs in that period of time. unemployment rate is at historic lows. americans are moving up to better jobs and better pay. since i took office, families are carrying less debt on average, they have more savings and we are doing it all while cutting the federal deficit by $1.7 trillion this year, and $320 billion last year. i hear my maga friends talk about debt and deficits, i will be good. [laughter] they increase the debt -- that

is another story. because of the progress, america can tackle inflation from a position of strength unlike any other country in the world because every country in the world is getting a piece of this inflation, worse than we are in the vast majority of the countries around the world. but make no mistake about it, i understand inflation is a real challenge to american families. today's inflation report confirmed what americans already know. putin's price hike is hitting americans hard. half of the monthly price increases sense may. inflation outside of energy and food, what the economists called core inflation, moderate in the last two months. it has come down. we need to come down more quickly. my administration will do what we can to continue to lower prices for the american people and congress has to act. one of the key ways to fight

inflation is by lowering the cost of moving goods through the supply chain. i first started talking about the supply chain when i came here a year ago. the american people wondered, supply chain, that is not a usual part of their jargon everyday. the understand fully. if you cannot get the material needed to build a product, whether it is an automobile or whatever it is, it makes it difficult to be able to move and that is called a supply chain. that is why i have been focused on ports. last fall, ports were congested because of the pandemic. we brought together port operators, shipping companies and labor. as a result, over the holidays, 97% of all the packages were delivered on time and on shelves when you went christmas shopping. remember, we were not going to have anything on those shelves?

you did it. [laughter] [applause] . not joe, you. 40% fewer containers are clogging the docs than there were last november. this may was the strongest month in the port of los angeles' history, the strongest month and its history. [applause] because of what my friends in congress have done, we passed infrastructure bill and we are funding major new initiatives on the docks. port of long beach has moved goods more quickly. communications near the ports and communities can breathe cleaner air because they are using electric machines. pres. biden: we expand capacity of our ports thanks to the

infrastructure law. this is the time we took a different approach to trucking. last summer, we brought together industry and labor to tackle problems facing truck drivers. it took -- we had to double the number of commercial driver license is being issued by the states to speed things up. we did it. we spent the creation of registration of apprenticeships, allowing inspiring -- aspiring drivers to learn. truckers wages went up after accounting for inflation. we are going to keep at it with a new super chain envoy, general steve lyons. general lyons is a four-star general, he handled the transportation command, only tens and millions of things to move. from little things like tanks and aircraft, all kidding aside. he has come of the sidelines.

he has helped us identify and get ahead of challenges that arise at our ports. our railroads, and on the roads. this is about reducing costs for families. you know, i have to admit to you , a lot of us elected officials have been in office for a while. every once in a while, something you learn makes you angry, like if you had the person in front of you, you would want to pop them. there are nine major ocean alliance shipping companies -- companies that ship to the united states. they formed consortium. these companies have raised their prices by as much as 1000%. everything coming from asia, they get 90% of it. they have raised it by 1000%. that is why i called on congress

to crack down on -- they are foreign owned. foreign-owned shipping companies that raise prices while raking in $190 billion in profit. a sevenfold increase in one year. sevenfold increase, $190 billion. senate passes legislation, i am hopeful to crack down these companies. and lower the costs. i am grateful to californians, speaker pelosi and john garamendi for leading this effort. thank you, i mean it. it is a big deal. people at home trying -- paycheck-to-paycheck, wondering, what in god's name did nine shipping companies have to do with it? almost everything you are doing, from what you are eating, to what you drive, what need in your home, related to the supply chains. what is coming from abroad.

i am doing everything in my power to blunt putin spite -- price hike and bring down the cost of gas and food. i have led the world to coordinate the largest was -- release of oil reserves in history. 240 million barrels to keep prices from rising even more. thanks to america's leadership, we have helped producers reliance on russian oils by tripling our gas systems to europe, compared to last year. we are working closely with our european partners to get 20 aliens of grain in ukraine, already in silos now. ukraine and russia, two major suppliers of grain and corn. 20 million in their silos right now. we are trying to help them get that, russians are blocking the exports. they are not allowed out to the black sea, we are trying to figure out how to get it out of the country to get around the world. it will ring down prices.

there is more. there is more than one way to solve this problem. we are working to bring down food prices, gas prices and save families money by dealing with other items. my dad used essay, it is all about the standard of living. how much you have left in the paycheck at the end of the month. how much is left to do the basic things. add up the things people need to do everything from take care of kids, turn the heat on, air-conditioning, everything in between. there is a lot of ways we can reduce their cost, their cost of living. other than, while we are trying to get grain and gas. we laid out a plan, lower prescription drug costs. that would fundamentally affect the well-being of every family. those of you who know somebody who has type two diabetes, has an insulin requirement monthly.

it would cost an average of $647 a month, as high as $1000 in some places. you know how much it costs to make that vial of insulin? $10. no new research has been done. the charge is outrageous. i think we should be able to have medicare do what they do when they deal with the v.a.. the v.a. says, we are only going to pay so much for this. medicare negotiates the price for them. medicare will negotiate the price in insulin, guess what. it comes down a lot. outrageous numbers. put a cap on insulin, $35 a month, they will still make a significant profit. $10 to manufacture, $35. for example, we can over the cost of high-speed internet. what you did dealing with the infrastructure bill, working with food as we cut the price

and raised the speed. average bill for every family, $30 a month. ok, you are paying more than $30 a month to your gas. that still increases the money out of pocket, decrease the amount you have to put out. we are doing everything in our power to lower costs to families. congressional publicans -- republicans led by rick scott have a different approach. i mean it sincerely. rick scott tried to change his words yesterday after he introduced -- he had the reelection of the senators on the republican side. he realized, he said, everybody, no matter what their station, if they are on welfare should pay a tax. everybody should pay a tax. well, here is the truth. one concrete plan i laid out was going to raise taxes on working

families an average of $1500 a month. while we have 54 corporations out there, didn't pay any tax the last two years and made $40 billion. they didn't want to tax them. they do not want to tax billionaires that are literally paying a lower tax rate. he had to walk back from his plans on health care. he says, what we have to do now that we finally got the affordable care act functioning and prices down an average of $400 for people, he wants to eliminate it again. by the way, the best thing republicans are pushing now in reelection, they think medicare -- i am not making this up, go online and look. medicare, social security and decayed. go on the chopping block every five years. at the end of five years, they go out of existence.

unless they are affirmatively voted into existence, every five years. medicare, social security, medicaid. they forget, people pay for social security. they pay for it. people say, they will never eliminate it. they will be able to pick it apart. they will be able to cut it back. that is the objective. folks, it is not right. it is simply not right. i disagree. this is not your father's republican party. it is a different deal. i work with a lot of honorable republicans. this is a maga gang. a magna crowd. they have a different view of the role of government and who should pay what. i am going to work with anyone, democrat, republican, independent, deliver real

solutions for families. because of the strong foundation we build, we are in better position behind any country in the world to overcome the globalization we are seeing and take the next steps towards forming a historic recovery, and the new moment. i count recovery as going from where we are today in terms of the economy to stability to make it stable. it is strong as can be. for inflation, but for gas and for food. look, we have to keep coming together to find common ground to solve problems like we have done in and trucking. we continue to build the extraordinary progress we have made. we have got to continue building this economy from the bottom up and the middle out. i mean that literally. i am so sick and tired of trickle-down economics. it does not work. when the middle class is doing well, they do well because of

labor, the poor have a way up, the wealthy do very, very well. they have never been hurt when the middle class is doing well. never. never. it is about time we regather and remember who we are, get this done. there is no better place to start in right here in the port, nine foreign shippers understand the ripoff is over. thank you. [applause] all right. [applause] >> are you going to go after them? pres. biden: exxon's profits this quarter, exxon made more money than god this here. nothing has changed. one thing i want to say about the oil companies, they talk about how they have 9000 permits to drill.

they are not drilling. why are they not drilling? they make more money not producing more oil/ . the price goes up, number two, they are buying back their own stock, which should be taxed. buying back their own stock, making no new investments. i always thought republicans were or investment. exxon, start paying your taxes. thanks. [applause]

[indiscernible chatter] >> march for our lives at the national mall of washington. also, our free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org. >> after months of closed-door investigations, the house january 6 committee holds public hearings. watch day two as committee

members question key witnesses what transpired, and why during the assault on the u.s. capitol. our live coverage begins on monday morning at c-span. you can watch on our free mobile deal app or online at c-span.org. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. ♪ >> american history tv, saturdays on c-span two. exploring the people and events that tell the american story. when is that 8:30 eastern for our political history conference from purdue university as historians and authors discuss the past, present and future of democracy with an array of topics like energy politics, presidential scandals, and public housing. at 5:00 p.m. eastern, rob vaux talk, a former speech writer,

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downloaded for free today. c-span now, your front row seat washington. anytime, anywhere. ♪ >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, included -- including comcast. >> you think this is just a community center? it is way more than that. comcast is partnering with thousands of community centers so students of low income families can get what they need for anything. comcast supports c-span as a public service, as well as these other providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. ♪ >> after months of closed-door investigations, the house january 6 committee held its first hearing with public testimony about what transpired and why during the assault on the u.s. capitol. members heard from two witnesses, a policfi