cox connect to compete. >> cox supports a c-span along with these other television providers giving a front row seat to democracy. >> president biden talked about the economy hosted by the national association of counties, during his remarks to -- the president expressed his condolences to the victims of the families at michigan state university. he discussed negotiations with republicans over raising the debt ceiling.

♪ [cheering and applause] >> they said they were not going to play my music again but they did. i am going to say a few words. you may wonder why that is my theme song. she is the queen and i want to pay respect. [applause] the other piece of that is about respect. you think about the song. r-e-s-p-e-c-t. that is us treating each other with respect.

we do not have to all agree. [applause] we do not have to like each other and we don't have to love each other but we can treat each other with respect, civility, courtesy, consideration, with honesty and that is what we need to do. that is the point of that theme song. you will hear it a lot for me. r-e-s-p-e-c-t. find out what it means to me. [applause] you know why i am here today. i have the honor to introduce the president of the united states. [cheering and applause] if you think i am excited, my parents, who are longgone, are kicking their heels up above because they are knowing their little girl is on the stage with

the president of the united states. [applause] i am excited. i know some of you know this but he began his career in public service in county government in delaware. he said, i am a county guy and he still is. he is one of us. the president understands county government. he went up to bat for us for the american rescue plan. that was $65.1 billion direct to the counties. [applause] that is on top of the earlier covid relief packages. he is with us every step of the way with bipartisan infrastructure law,

roads and bridges that need fixing, he is going to help you do that. county leaders share his goal to connect every single american to reliable, affordable high-speed internet. [applause] with the laws passed the last few years we will be able to achieve that goal. we are glad to hear him discussing the state of the union and tackling the mental health crisis. [applause] we mentioned earlier this morning that is a national crisis. people of younger ages being affected by that. we are going to get a handle on that with his help. this is an issue that affects every county and we look forward to working with him on it. thank you, president biden. we are grateful to have a strong partner in the white house and look at what we have had at this

conference. all levels of the administration, high levels, with us through his support. it is my honor to introduce to you our friend, the 46th president of the united states, the honorable joseph biden. [cheering and applause] ♪

>> we think people are like us, familiar with all the detail of this. familiar with all the detail of how government works. they don't know whether there is

a pothole in their side street, whether it is the county, the state, they don't know who was responsible. they come to the county all the time. at least that is what my experience was. when you don't have the same funding that you have a for these other programs. we -- you find out it is hard. one of the things that i found out early on was we always did better when there was direct funding for the things related to the county. it is one of the hardest jobs, i'm not being solicitous, it is one of the hardest jobs in politics. how many have you knocked on the door and say i am running for county commissioner? an ego, yeah -- and they go, yeah, you want to know what the county commissioner does? , well yeah. i sincerely mean it. i want to begin by thanking you all for what you do.

thank you. i ran for the u.s. state senate because being in the county council was too hard. [laughter] look, i'm glad to be here with all of you. before i begin i want to take a moment to say our hearts are with the students and families of michigan state university, last night i spoke with the governor and the fbi and the federal law enforcement are on the ground assisting the state and local folks. three lives have been lost and five seriously injured. it is a family's worth nightmare -- worst nightmare. it is happening far too often in the country. while we gather more information, there is one thing that we do know to be true, we have to do something to stop gun violence ripping apart our communities. [cheering]

today marks five years to the day that 14 students and three educators lost their lives in parkland, florida. parkland, flo. i met every one of those families and spent time with them all. a lot of you confront violence in our communities every single day. we took a big step on legislation on ghost guns and background checks, there is a lot more work to do and i am committing to get it done with all of you, some of you know that i will say something that is always controversial, but there is no rationale for assault weapons and magazines that hold 57 -- 50 or 70 bullets. [laughter]

[applause] >> look, some of you know i started as a councilman in delaware and the county executive in new castle county, matt meyer, where are you sitting? [applause] matt is hiding because -- i am not kidding, it is good to see you. matt knows what i am talking about. when people have a problem, they have your number, they knock on your door, and only you but your spouses' cannot show up without can you fix my such and such? i always had an enormous respect for the job that you do. you are the ones who make people make sure that everything gets

fixed, the library stays open late so kids can do their homework, the sewer system is backing up into the creek and basement and making sure that the public health department runs smoothly and that your communities are growing and changing -- meeting the growing and changing populations. a huge responsibility that you have. they touch every aspect of life. when your constituents call needing help with a state problem or a city problem, you take the call. you get it done, you call and make sure that you find out how to get it done. simply put, you get things done. fixing problems. that is because you know the partisan points of score, it is how you fix the problem, can you fix the problem when you are a democrat, republican, or independent?

there has always been competition but in the last 10 or 12 years it has been a particularly of. i told my friends in congress, in my state of the union address last week, i believe people sent us a clear message in this election. fighting for the sake of fighting gets us nowhere. we are here to get things done. that is why we got elected. it has always been my vision and i mean it has always been my vision and it is yours as well. we have been delivering on that vision. when i came to office, the pandemic was raging and our economy was really. together we acted, less than two months after i took office the american rescue plan led to the fast economic recovery in any economy in the world. at the beginning of the crisis, these at a local governments were the key to our recovery when the care act was passed, before i came into office, just

before, under the previous administration, some of you had to go to the state legislatures to use the money within the act. i used it see these issues, on the hundred 20 counties got help. a lot of money, only 120 counties. when i signed the american rescue and, i sent $350 billion for the first time to every state, city, and county in america and we made sure -- [applause] over 3000 counties got direct funding because i know we have empowered you directly, you can get the job done, 3000 counties. avoiding painful layoffs, it worked. since then because of you, we have created 12.5 one million

jobs, -- 12.5 million jobs. the most created in a four year term, the unemployment rate is 3.4%, a 50 year low. we have seen record small business applications, every time that somebody makes their application, that is hope, it is hope. they hope they can get something done, we urge you to use rescue plan money to make community safer and invested in affordable housing and get small businesses back on their feet, train your workforce and you did. travis county texas and the state of washington, we are addressing homelessness by increasing the affordable housing stock and partnering with nonprofits to get to the root of the problem. minnesota is addressing health care and childcare by hiring

more nurses and licensed childcare professionals. the american rescue plan also provided $12 billion to address mental health needs rising from the pandemic. i know that addressing mental health is a party for so many of you in this organization. one of the things that i have wrote down for the vice president, i keep notecards of what i think we have to do and i said we have to pass legislation on the damaging technology that is having an effect on our kids, we have to change the way the internet works and where people can use our children -- where people can meet our children. milwaukee county is using rescue funds to help kids involved in the criminal justice system, l.a. county is offering job-training for kids in

vulnerable populations. we are providing another $10 billion to prevent violence and human trauma, $2 billion of that is for young people in particular to pay for things like school counselors, part of the unity agenda, i call for a surge in resources to deal with the fentanyl epidemic that i know is a devastating many in this community. we have a record number of personnel working to secure the border and we have seized over when he thousand pounds of fentanyl in the last several months. if we will have a stronger economy -- the strong economy in the world, we had to have the best infrastructure in the world. we used to be number one and we have moved to number 14 and china used to be 10 or 11 and they are number two. that is why i asked congress to pass the bipartisan infrastructure investment act.

larger than any investment made in infrastructure since the interstate highway system, republicans came together to democrats to get it passed. -- with democrats to get it passed. your counties were investing in roads, bridges, airports, water systems, high-speed rail, so much more. maricopa county in arizona, we built a new bridge over the holly river. in warshaw, or washington county in nevada, we are spending $89 billion to add several lines to the u.s. 395. we are replacing diesel buses which are bad for the health and environment, with the leadership of vice president harris with others, we are delivering

affordable high-speed internet so parents do not need to sit in a mcdonald's so their children can do their homework. [applause] we have added 16 million more households and we are getting started, we are making the biggest investment ever in climate into the inflation reduction act rating millions of good paying jobs and investing in communities that suffer the most as a consequence of being smothered by pollution. think of cancer alley in louisiana or route nine in delaware. they'll be the first one to benefit. we have passed the chips and science act which has led to a commitment of over $300 billion in private investment in manufacturing. your opening factories in your estates to build semiconductor chips, electric vehicles and advanced batteries that will power vehicles.

my first two years of office created 8000 manufacturing jobs, or is it written we cannot lead the world in manufacturing -- where is it written we cannot lead the world in manufacturing? a lot of companies left, how many of you come from areas who used to have a factory with 400 or 500 people and then it took off overseas? what happens? it leaves the community devastated, it loses hope, how many of you have heard someone say to you that my daughter came up to me and say i could not live here there are no more jobs. america is exporting products and creating jobs at home. [applause] today's report on inflation it

shows that inflation in america is continuing to come down, it has fallen seven straight months, food prices are coming down. gas prices are down $1.60. real wages are up for americans and allowing welcome breathing room, all of my father is looking for is a little bit of breathing room on the end of the month, have a little bit left over after i have paid all of my bills. we are seeing this progress and we will have bumps in the road still, there is no more work to do to make this transition more steady, more stable growth. there could be setbacks along the way. that is why i am continuing to lower cost for families. invest in america. today's data reinforces that we are on the right track, we need to finish the job.

we are building the economy from the bottom up. the middle out. every county across america, not just cost, coast-to-coast areas, but in the heartland, my plan refers to the blue-collar blueprint to rebuild america. jobs you can raise a family on and most do not require a college degree. jobs people do not need to leave home in search of opportunity. intel is going to invest $20 billion on a thousand acres outside of columbus, ohio. they will build two factories that manufacture semiconductors, semiconductors were invented in america, invented in america. we used to have 40% of the world's chips manufacturing, we are down to 10%. not anymore.

intel will create 7000 jobs building in facilities. the average salary of one of the factories is going to be roughly $130,000 a year. you do not need a college degree. you do not need a college degree. [applause] that is built america from the bottom up out of the middle out but there is 30 $300 billion being invested. -- $330 billion being invested. you may have seen my state of the union address -- [laughter] it was kind of fascinating, it felt like i was back on a

playground! [laughter] some of my republican friends in congress have been threatening to hold your economy hostage if we do not cut medicare and social security. when i called them out on this, it sounded as though they agreed right then and there to take those cuts off of the table. [laughter] i sure hope so. i will believe it when i see it but i hope that is true. that is also when we see whether or not we will plan to cut medicaid and other programs critical to people. most of you have reached the point where you revenues are climbing out of your budgets are stable. so i know that you share my concerns with some in congress, they are putting their progress at risk by threatening to have america default on its debt which would be catastrophic for counties and the country. in fact, even coming close to default, raising borrowing costs to make it harder to give into

the communities. nearly 25% of the entire national debt which took 200 years to accumulate, in human rights over that period of time, 25 -- eight accumulated over that period of time, 25% of it was accumulated in the past administration. i met with the speaker of the house, a decent diet, he has a tough job. he says he wants to cut programs. i suggested instead of making threats about the debt ceiling, that we should be laying out our budgets. i will lay out my on march the ninth, exactly what i want to spend, who gets taxed, who does not get taxed, what programs he removed and added and he should

do the same and we should sit down and go over it. see what they want to cut and what we want to cut. here is the thing. if you add up the proposal of my republican friends in congress that have been offered so far, so far, legislations, it would add another $3 trillion to debt over the next 10 years, let me be specific, here is how they do it. they made it clear that they induced the investment on billionaires and millionaires of the ceo says by doing away with those extra agents we will cost american public another 114 billion dollars in lost revenue. it made medicare negotiated two drug prices. they want to repeal that. they want to increase subsidies to big pharma. right now, for the first time in

history, i have been trying to do this for over 30 years, we pay the highest prescription drug cost of any nation in the world. any nation in the world, no one else's close. we passed the law that said in order to be able to be on medicare which pays billion's of dollars of medicare bills for everybody, medicare should be able to negotiate drug prices and say we will only pay you so much more than a drug if you want to sell the drug to medicare to give to people. guess what? it passed. [applause] if that gets cut -- by the way, it is like when we talk about the bill being passed everybody says we will promise to bring down drug prices, how many of you know somebody who needs insulin? a lot of you do, a lot of people. those folks in need including

two kids are paying 400 or $500 a month as of the first of january, they are paying $35. [applause] we are not cheating anybody, do you know how much it costs to make that drug? $10. packaging is another two dollars. it was invented over hundred dollar -- 200 years ago. the man who created it did not want a patent on it so it was available to everybody. the total amount of costs that the drug should have to be paid for his $3800. -- is $3800. who has those kinds of bills? my family. do you know how much cancer drugs cost?

thousands of dollars a year. nobody on medicare would have to pay more than $2000 a year for all of the drugs they consume. nobody. [applause] that is saving the taxpayers $159 billion a year. they are paying that much less out to medicare recipients. take that away and raised the deficit hundred $59 billion, we passed a law to make sure that corporations be at least 50% tax. this comes from the corporate capital of the world, delaware. [laughter] i am not joking, more businesses are incorporated in delaware than any other business combined -- than all of the other states combined.

i was able to have these programs available, it was simple, we said the 55 corporations of the fortune 500 who made $40 billion in 2020 had to pay at least a 50% tax. that is less than a nurse pays, a police officer, a street cleaner. guess what, it allowed us to pay for all of this. 15%. like i said, if you are a cop, you are paying 10% more than that. they want to repeal it, they want to appeal the corporate minimum tax. it is 15%. they do that and it adds $222 billion to the deficit. they want to appeal the 1% surcharge for stock buybacks, let me explain, i did not know what a stock buyback was.

it is a simple proposition. if in fact you -- one of my big mistakes are made as u.s. senator and it was well intended like a lot of things, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, one of the good intentions was with bill clinton who was a good friend who said that no corporate man or president could make more than $1 million from the prophet of their corporations they are in. -- profit of their corporations they are in. in 1991, -- 91% of executives are paid in stock. buyback your stock to increase her salary, it raises the price of the stock and it raises the value. shareholders and you do well but you are not investing in the things you are engaged in.

for example, corporate america, you had the oil companies, you know how much they made in profit this year? $200 billion during the energy crisis. they bought back their stock and they are not investing it into repairing or maintaining refineries. there is a legitimate argument that they make that you want to go green in 10 years, you will not need this. we are going to need oil for a long time, gas for a long time, it is not going to all go away. oil refineries are closing. they are not investing in the nature of the business to evolve. what do we do? we added a percent tax on stock buyback. if you eliminate that, it will cost more than the deficit. they want to extend the trunk ump tax cut which cost $2.7

trillion in the deficit. guess who gets it? you do not. the point is this. i believe we could be fiscally responsible without threatening to us in our country into chaos and i believe that because we have been doing it. when i get the budget a few weeks from now, we will see that we cut the deficit by another $2 trillion in the next 10 years. i will lay it out in detail, here is the bottom line. i am simply not going to let the nation default for the first time in history, america's has paid its bill for the past 200 years and over the past two years we passed historic amounts of significant legislation that grow the economy and increase jobs and increase access to health care and the cost of -- and decrease the cost of

prescription drugs. as all of you know, i am optimistic for the year ahead. the loss of already passed, we did not pass another single thing, the things that will take place by implementing the laws we pass last year will deliver real benefits to people and they will feel that in their everyday lives, just like people now understand inflation reduction act was passed, you will only pay $35 for prescription drugs. you see the effects that will change people's lives. this is the work that we do together, democrats and republicans and we are proving in every county in america our best days are ahead of us, they are not behind us. this is the united states of america. there is nothing, there is nothing we can't do.

where are the only nation that is come out of every crisis we have ever met stronger than we went into it, the only nation that has ever done that. the only nation in the world. we have a resilient population, america never gives up, never backs away, never stops, i mean it! [applause] we have an incredible country and there is nothing beyond our capacity if we do it together and are looking at the counties being the key to get it done. god bless you all, thank you, may god protect our troops. ♪ ♪ ♪

>> on wednesday, the son secretary speaks to the press, where he has been meeting with foreign allies to discuss the war in ukraine almost a full year after russia began its invasion. live coverage begins at eight at -- 8:30 a.m. on c-span2. you can watch on our free mobile video app, c-span now or online at c-span.org. >>