During my nine years serving this community in Congress, we’ve accomplished a lot together. But in 2021, we helped usher two of the most historic pieces of legislation in modern history through Congress and to President Biden’s desk, and championed jobs, infrastructure and working families.

When I traveled to Washington to begin my fifth term one year ago, I was clear-eyed about the challenges facing our country and our community. The COVID-19 pandemic had taken thousands of lives and countless livelihoods. We needed to take bold action to rebuild our economy and counter the ongoing pandemic.

So, we got to work. And by March, we passed the American Rescue Plan to get vaccines out to millions of Americans, money back in the pockets of taxpayers, children back in school and Americans back to work.

This legislation fulfilled the most urgent needs faced by our communities. It distributed $1,400 checks to help families get by, expanded the Child Tax Credit to cut child poverty in half, replenished programs supporting our small businesses, distributed $122 billion to reopen our nation’s schools safely and helped our counties, cities and towns continue to provide essential services despite lost revenue.

With these investments and more, the American Rescue Plan helped our families and our economy.

But more work was needed. We needed to fix our crumbling roads and bridges, address the lack of high-speed internet in too many communities and create millions of new jobs.

After a lot of work, we managed to achieve what many thought was impossible: a bipartisan infrastructure bill.

Despite tense negotiations and Washington drama, we passed the largest long-term investment to rebuild our nation since the Eisenhower era. For Illinois, this means jobs, jobs, jobs.

In the coming year, this bill will begin creating millions of good-paying jobs, all while transforming our highways, bridges, waterways and broadband across the country. With $110 billion to repair roads and bridges, our rides to work and school will be smoother. With the largest investment in public transportation and passenger rail since the creation of Amtrak, this will eliminate the Amtrak maintenance backlog, improve rail safety and help us continue to fix our grade crossings. With $65 billion for broadband, we’ll extend high-speed internet access into the smallest rural communities. And with $17 billion for our inland waterways – we’ll improve the vital infrastructure that gets our corn and soybeans to the global market.

Not only will these investments improve our daily lives – they will create millions of new jobs along the way.

Now, as we create new jobs and grow our economy, we have to ensure that every American can share in the prosperity. That means rebuilding our economy in a way that benefits the middle class – the backbone of our country and our communities. Last month, I was proud to help advance the Build Back Better Act in Congress, which will support middle class families by cutting the household costs. This package is awaiting action in the Senate.

From child and elder care, health care, prescription drugs, education and housing – middle class families have been forced to bear the brunt of rising costs. With the Build Back Better Act, we can ensure that folks in the middle can survive and thrive. I’ll keep working to get these priorities over the finish line.

While I’m proud of our work on these important bills, it’s only part of the work we’ve done in 2021. With 7,500 miles traveled across Northwest and Central Illinois, nearly 27,000 emails, phone calls and letters responded to and 215 events across our communities, my team and I are making good on our promise to show up, work hard and get results. In fact, we were even recognized by the Congressional Management Foundation as the No. 1 Democratic office for constituent services. In 2022, my final year serving our community in Congress, we’ll continue to put Illinois families first each day.

Congresswoman Cheri Bustos represents the 17th Congressional District of Illinois.