Your View by Rep. Susan Wild: What we’ve accomplished in 100 days of Congress
As the first 100 days of the 116th Congress come to a close, I'm reflecting on the work we've done, the promises I made on the campaign trail and the reasons the voters of Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District sent me to Washington.
I know that to work effectively on behalf of the people of the greater Lehigh Valley — those who voted for me and those who didn't — the most important thing I can do is simple: listen.
That's why I promised to be accessible to my constituents — and that's why in my first 100 days of the 116th Congress, I met with more than 150 constituents, held five town hall and Q&A events, and visited 17 local businesses and 10 local schools. I've met with educators and labor leaders, health workers and patients, business leaders and manufacturers, students and senior citizens.
I've heard the same messages from constituents of all backgrounds across Pennsylvania's 7th District: Build an economy that delivers for working and middle-class people. Protect earned benefits like Medicare and Social Security. Defend the rights and dignity of all people. Work across the aisle on urgent priorities like protecting our communities from gun violence and combating the opioid epidemic. And fight to ensure the next generation has a healthy planet and an equal — if not higher — standard of living as their parents.
These messages have driven and shaped my work, particularly as a member of the Education and Labor Committee — where we're working to make workplaces safer for working Pennsylvanians, raise the minimum wage, help students saddled with student loan debt, and make higher education more inclusive and affordable. I'm proud of everything we're doing in the Education and Labor Committee to build an economy and an education system that lifts all workers, all students and all Pennsylvanians.
My promise to improve our health care system, lower health care costs and protect people with pre-existing conditions led me to introduce my own bill as part of a larger effort to improve the Affordable Care Act — the Family Health Care Affordability Act — to fix the ACA's "family glitch." This issue has prevented some workers from being able to extend their employer-provided insurance to their families, and my bill is a small fix to a big problem for many working families.
I also committed that I would work to reform our government, reduce the influence of money in politics, and ensure every American has a voice in our democracy. We kept that commitment when we passed HR1 — a landmark government reform package that included my bill to enact early voting across our country. In Pennsylvania, we don't have early voting, and that hurts working and lower-income people, who often have far less time and flexibility to get to the polls.
I've also heard from constituents — workers and students—who are hurting from the 2017 tax overhaul because they are unable to file for deductions that previously provided a small amount of relief during tax season. That's why I introduced two bills to reinstate and make permanent some of the deductions that students and workers depend on. The first bill would reinstate the tax deductions for workers for unreimbursed work expenses — expenses such as the cost of tools and supplies, work clothes and uniforms, work-related travel, transportation and meal expenses, and home office expenses. If we are going to keep our promise to create an economy that lifts everyone up and allows for the kind of economic promise possible only in America, we can't allow Pennsylvania's workers to literally pay the price for working.
The second bill would reinstate the tax deduction for tuition and other qualified school-related expenses. Our students are facing extremely high tuition costs and graduating from college with mountains of debt; this is a small step we can take right now to help students find a bit of relief as we seek comprehensive solutions to combat the student loan crisis and bring down the cost of higher education.
This has been a productive 100 days, but people in our community and across our country are counting on us to do far more. They're also counting on the Senate and the White House to do their part so that the legislation the House passes gets signed into law.