WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05) released the following statement tonight on President Trump’s first State of the Union Address:
“Tonight, the President spoke of building a ‘safe, strong, and proud America’ but 
neither his words tonight nor his actions over the past year are accomplishing any of those goals. Instead, he has made Americans less safe, less strong, and less proud.
“He has failed to put forward a jobs bill. The tax law he touted tonight in reality hands out massive tax breaks to the wealthy while sticking the middle class – and our children and grandchildren – with an enormous credit card bill. He has sabotaged the Affordable Care Act, undermining health care for millions and raising premiums for millions more. He has stripped away workers’ rights, permitted discrimination against LGBT Americans, rolled back protections for students, and allowed corporate polluters to threaten our children with toxic air and water. And he has undermined our standing in the world and put our national security at risk through his reckless actions.
“The infrastructure proposal the President spoke about tonight falls into this same litany of failures and broken promises. President Trump campaigned on a pledge to bring both parties together behind a plan to invest in rebuilding our infrastructure networks, but the American people have had to wait more than a year to see what he would propose. Now we know: it’s merely more rhetoric without any details on how to move forward, and it does not appear to be the strong investment in a twenty-first century infrastructure that our country sorely needs.
“I hope the President saw the faces of the many DREAMers Members brought as our guests tonight. ‘Americans love their country,’ the President said in his speech, ‘and they deserve a government that shows them the same love and loyalty in return.’ DREAMers love this country too, and they deserve action from Congress to end the fear and uncertainty they are facing as a result of a crisis of the President’s own making. Any action Congress takes should reflect our deepest values: allowing DREAMers to stay should not mean tearing other immigrant families apart.
“While the state of Donald Trump’s presidency may be perilous, I have no doubt that the state of our union remains resilient. America perseveres not because of this President but in spite of the damage he is doing to our economy, our national security, and our democratic norms. Democrats will continue fighting for all Americans and to make our union ‘safer, stronger, and prouder,’ not in rhetoric but in reality.”
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen released the following statement in response to President Trump’s State of the Union address:
“The first year of the Trump Administration has been one of most significant tests of our democracy in our lifetime. In tonight’s State of the Union address, President Trump was eager to take credit for things he had nothing to do with and ignore the harm he has imposed on the country over the last year. The American people deserve a leader who spends less time patting his own back and more time having their backs. Unfortunately, what we’ve seen from President Trump has been anything but real leadership.
“Instead of starting his presidency with a single bipartisan proposal, President Trump made an all-out assault on Americans’ health care. He is quick to invoke the ‘forgotten’ men and women when it’s useful in a speech, but he didn’t give them a second thought when he passed enormous tax breaks for millionaires and corporations – and asked millions of American children, workers, and seniors to foot the bill. While Mr. Trump wants to take credit for every uptick in the stock market and one-time bonuses from major corporations, he refuses to acknowledge their sizeable layoffs and Wall Street paydays. The Administration’s unrelenting efforts to tear immigrant families apart and waste taxpayers’ money on an ineffective wall has put thousands of families in crisis. And in both word and deed, he has diminished our stature around the world and undermined our national security.
“At every turn, Mr. Trump has broken promises to the middle class and made life harder for people in Maryland and across the country. Should he decide to pursue an agenda that puts working families first – on economic issues, on infrastructure investments, on protecting our Dreamers – Democrats stand ready to work with him. But if he refuses to change his ways, we will fight him tooth and nail.”