Sam Graves: What President Biden should have said last night

(From Sixth District Congressman Sam Graves)

President Biden finally addressed a Joint Session of Congress this week.

While we can sit here and debate what the President could've said and what he should've said all day, it isn't going to change what he did say. And, it isn't going to change what happens tomorrow.

President Biden failed to lay out a clear vision on how to move America forward. He didn't offer any actual solutions to get Americans back to work and get our country back on track. Heck, he didn't even offer a plan to end the humanitarian and national security crisis he let spiral out of control at the border. 

Instead, he spent roughly an hour talking about how he wants to spend $6 trillion of your money to grow the federal government. That’s the plan—spend more money we don’t have. That's the last thing we need right now.

What we do need is real leadership—the kind President Biden promised us on day one of his administration. We need more than empty platitudes about bipartisanship, we need real tangible action.

There's no better place for the President to start than with infrastructure. It’s an issue where I think we can find common ground. Both parties agree we need to fix America's highways, waterways, bridges, ports and improve our rural broadband infrastructure. Roads, rivers, rail, routers…that’s infrastructure.

It's also clear that we can't afford a bunch of wasteful spending right now. American businesses, American workers, and American families are still suffering. We shouldn't be talking about an infrastructure bill that spends almost twice as much on building electric car charging stations as it does on fixing roads and bridges.

We should be talking about targeted investments, cutting red tape, and finding common ground on how we can fix our infrastructure without breaking the bank. We simply can't afford to mortgage our children's and grandchildren's future to foot the bill.

Make no mistake, there's plenty of common ground to be found. With just a little common sense, we can find it. I just hope the President is willing to seek it.