(NewsNation Now) — Republicans booed President Joe Biden on Tuesday night during his first State of the Union speech.
While discussing his fight to pass the American Rescue Plan, Biden criticized the Trump administration tax breaks.
“Unlike the $2 trillion tax cut passed in the previous administration that benefited the top 1% of Americans,” Biden said, as boos erupted from Republicans in the audience.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer was seen hesitantly standing up as the audience near him starts to boo in response to Biden’s remarks.
The president then went on to explain how the American Rescue Plan helped working people and the middle class.
“It worked. It created jobs. Lots of jobs. In fact — our economy created over 6.5 million new jobs just last year, more jobs created in one year than ever before in the history of America. Our economy grew at a rate of 5.7% last year, the strongest growth in nearly 40 years, the first step in bringing fundamental change to an economy that hasn’t worked for the working people of this nation for too long.
“For the past 40 years, we were told that if we gave tax breaks to those at the very top, the benefits would trickle down to everyone else.
“But that trickle-down theory led to weaker economic growth, lower wages, bigger deficits and the widest gap between those at the top and everyone else in nearly a century.
“Vice President Harris and I ran for office with a new economic vision for America.
“Invest in America. Educate Americans. Grow the workforce. Build the economy from the bottom up
and the middle out, not from the top down. Because we know that when the middle class grows, the poor have a ladder up and the wealthy do very well.
“America used to have the best roads, bridges, and airports on Earth. Now our infrastructure is ranked 13th in the world. We won’t be able to compete for the jobs of the 21st century if we don’t fix that. That’s why it was so important to pass the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — the most sweeping investment to rebuild America in history.
“This was a bipartisan effort, and I want to thank the members of both parties who worked to make it happen. We’re done talking about infrastructure weeks. We’re going to have an infrastructure decade,” Biden said.
Watch Biden’s full State of the Union speech.