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Rhode Island leaders comment on President Biden's State of the Union


President Joe Biden arrives to deliver the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol, Tuesday, March 1, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
President Joe Biden arrives to deliver the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol, Tuesday, March 1, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
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Two Rhode Island congressmen gave their take with NBC 10 on President Joe Biden's State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

A major theme in Biden's speech was tackling inflation as the cost-of-living increases all across the country.

"We know that there are still a lot of working people out there that are struggling," Democratic Rep. Seth Magaziner told NBC 10 ahead of Tuesday night's address.

Magaziner likes the direction Biden is taking when it comes to inflation, including lowered energy costs and prescription drugs.

"Until everyone in this country has a chance to work hard and achieve a good middle class life, then we can't rest," Magaziner said.

"We have more work to do to bring down costs to get everyone back to work, to make the kinds of investments in rebuilding our infrastructure that the bipartisan bill provided," added Rep. David Cicilline, a Democrat.

Magaziner said the work is far from finished.

In a statement to NBC 10 following the speech, Magaziner wrote in part: "We must do more to lower health care costs for working Americans, and I share President Biden’s steadfast commitment to extend the $35 per month insulin cap to all Americans. After Rhode Islanders just experienced a record cold snap, we have our work cut out for us to lower energy costs, so that no family has to choose between buying groceries and heating their home this winter."

Cicilline touted the Infrastructure Bill as one of the big wins for Rhode Island and the Biden administration.

"We received $2.5 billion in the infrastructure bill over the next five years, which is gonna really be transformative in our state," Cicilline said.

Following the speech, Cicilline sent NBC 10 the following statement, writing in part:

“And we must continue our work to drive down everyday costs by fighting inflation and cracking down on monopolies and anti-competitive behavior that are resulting in Big Oil and other giant corporations seeing record profits at the expense of hardworking Americans."

For the first time since 2019, representatives were allowed to bring guests for the big speech.

Magaziner was joined by Kwity Paye, a civil war refugee who moved to Warwick and is now a professional football player.

"I'm glad that the congressman brought me here so that I can be that person for the people that were that were once in my shoes," Paye told NBC 10 News.

Cicilline brought Andrew Cortes, founder of Building Futures -- a construction career training program based in Providence.

"Building futures is exactly the type of organization that knows how to translate, leverage that at a local level to make sure that Rhode Islanders who might be left behind aren't," Cortes said.

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