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<\/p>\nChester, PA…As I said, this is a great outfit. This is a union shop. These are people who work like the devil, and they can make a living wage, a decent wage. But 300,000 Pennsylvanians lost jobs \u2014 300,000. And in Delaware County alone \u2014 this in 2020 \u2014 19,000.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And I\u2019m not being solicitous when I say these are two of the finest congressmen in the United States Congress in terms of getting things done. I really mean it. And, you know, the American Rescue Plan is going to do more than just provide for the PPE. <\/p>\n
And one of the things that we\u2019ve done early on \u2014 they passed the CARES Act early on. And what we did \u2014 what they did was they provided for an inspector general \u2014 an outfit to look over where the money was going to make sure that it was spent properly. And the first thing the President did: he came along and he fired the inspector general. And we found out that only 40 percent of the people who, in fact, were small businesses got in on the deal. And they got very big businesses getting the lion\u2019s share of that money.<\/p>\n
So when we wrote this Rescue Plan, they were (inaudible) insistent that we have an inspector general to make sure the money goes exactly where it\u2019s supposed to go.<\/p>\n
And so we\u2019re in a position where it\u2019s going to bring immediate relief \u2014 $1,400 \u2014 to 85 percent of the American public. I said, yesterday, we\u2019re going to get 100 million shots in people\u2019s arms within the first 60 days of my administration and 100 million checks out \u2014 100 million people are going to be getting, not a joke, a check for $1,400, which would change their lives.<\/p>\n
And you know so many of the people who have worked (inaudible) and gotten themselves laid off or there wasn\u2019t work, and you find yourself, you know, it\u2019s hard paying the rent, hard paying the childcare, hard paying for much of anything. <\/p>\n
So I just think that \u2014 I hope that the program that we\u2019re having here \u2014 we\u2019re going to have a tax cut to help retired workers. We\u2019re in a situation where we\u2019re going to expand the paytech [sic] \u2014 paycheck \u2014 Paycheck Protection Program for the folks who were initially shut out.<\/p>\n
Initially, at the very beginning of the Paycheck Protection Program, you\u2019d go to a big bank, they\u2019d say, \u201cDo you have an account with us? Have you borrowed money from us? Do you have a credit card from us?\u201d They didn\u2019t want to deal with people who were on the short side of things. But you\u2019ve really made it work. And I think you should be aware: More help is on the way, for real. <\/p>\n
Do you have questions for me at all? <\/p>\n
MS. SMITH: Well, we don\u2019t have any questions, but we did want to say thank you. Thank you for your being who you are. Thank you for helping the small business \u2014 small minority business. It means a lot that you\u2019re here in Chester. It means a lot that you came to see our business because, you know, although Congresswoman Scanlon and Congresswoman Hou- \u2014 Houlahan, I\u2019m sorry. I know Congresswoman Scanlon a little more. (Laughs.) I\u2019m sorry. But not many people come out and stop here in Chester. And so we\u2019re just grateful. We\u2019re grateful for the things that you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n
THE PRESIDENT: Every time I got stop \u2014 stopped in Chester, I lost. I went to school in Claymont, just across the line at Archmere Academy. And we played up here, and you better come prepared to play against Chester. (Laughter.) <\/p>\n
MS. SMITH: That\u2019s true. <\/p>\n
THE PRESIDENT: (Inaudible) playing Chester. So a lot of my buddies are from Chester, for real. The people I grew up with. <\/p>\n
And it\u2019s \u2014 you know, one of the things that we haven\u2019t \u2014 and we\u2019re trying like the devil to make sure to correct is: People who are hardest hit by \u2014 and the Congresswoman knows this better than I do \u2014 the hardest hit are people in the minority communities. The rate at which they get COVID is significantly higher sometimes in the Latino community, black community \u2014 four times greater \u2014 and the death rate is significantly higher.<\/p>\n
And in the last place \u2014 and that\u2019s why we\u2019re working so hard \u2014 they\u2019re working so hard to make sure to get the vaccines in places that are not ordinarily the focus. That\u2019s why we put these vaccines in community health centers. That\u2019s why we have them in drugstores now. That\u2019s why we have mobile units. <\/p>\n
But I\u2019m not \u2014 I\u2019m not just saying this because we\u2019re here. They have been loud and strong voices \u2014 \u201cGet this done.\u201d And it\u2019s not like it passed with 100 votes. You know what I mean? It\u2019s \u2014 it was close. <\/p>\n
And I want to thank you both. And everybody in this county and the next county, in Delaware County, should thank you as well. <\/p>\n
So is there anything else we can be doing?<\/p>\n
MS. SMITH: We just want \u2014<\/p>\n
THE PRESIDENT: How many employees at your peak?<\/p>\n
MR. SMITH: At our peak, we\u2019re at about 20, 23 people. Our peak is summertime. We do a lot of school work, and so that\u2019s when we get our big boost.<\/p>\n
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.<\/p>\n
MR. SMITH: Right now we\u2019re about 12 \u2014 12 people between people in the office, out in the field. <\/p>\n
THE PRESIDENT: I think it\u2019s going to allow you to bring folks back and increase \u2014 increase your business.<\/p>\n
MR. SMITH: And it\u2019s great that schools got funding, so now the schools are going to do some construction and (inaudible).<\/p>\n
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. No, it\u2019s a big deal. It\u2019s a big deal.<\/p>\n
Well, you both do a heck of a job. <\/p>\n
MS. SMITH: Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chester, PA…As I said, this is a great outfit. This is a union shop. These are people who work like the devil, and they can make a living wage, a decent wage. But 300,000 Pennsylvanians lost jobs \u2014 300,000. And in Delaware County alone \u2014 this in 2020 \u2014 19,000. And I\u2019m not being solicitous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/whitehouselogo200.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=116316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=116316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=116316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=116316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}