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A workable agenda that can pass a closely-divided Congress — that’s what U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal said he wants to hear from the president-elect at next week’s inauguration.

Neal said he will attend the inauguration on Jan. 20. The Democrat representing the state’s 1st Congressional District said he doesn’t want to hear chaos and vindictiveness from President-elect Donald Trump as he returns to the White House.

“Obviously you want to hear what the address offers to the American family,” Neal told reporters Monday before an event at Agawam High School. “I hope that it will avoid chaos. And I hope that it will be specifically addressed to the needs and challenges of the American people.”

Neal left for Washington after the Agawam event having spent the morning in Southbridge where he announced a $7.8 million U.S. Department of Transportation grant for a project reconstructing a street there.

Neal said Trump is a master at using his platforms, especially social media, to change the national conversation.

“It is very hard to do policy after that,” Neal said.

The debate could be centered on taxes “and in the next breath you are reacting to whether we are going to seize the Panama Canal,” he said.

The House Ways and Means Committee, where Neal is the ranking Democratic minority member, controls tax policy. Starting Tuesday, Jan. 14, lawmakers on the committee start debating a planned Republican extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

The proposal could add $4 trillion to the national debt, Neal said.

And then there are tariffs. Import duties that also would have to pass through Ways and Means in a closely divided Congress.

“The threat of tariffs is generally more effective than the implementation of tariffs,” Neal said. “Remember that one thing that tariffs do, is they raise consumer costs.”

It is, after all, a tax, he said.