What Did Kevin Biden Tell Us About the State of the Union During His Visit to the House of Representatives? An Annotated Fact Check of the Speaker’s Profile
Americans still don’t like his Presidency, and a standoff over raising the national debt limit could cause some chaos this year. Republicans may not have a large majority in the House, but it was enough to make Kevin McCarthy the speaker and place a political opponent behind Biden’s shoulder during the speech, an important symbol of the power Republicans now hold in Washington.
Facing a national audience as he approaches a likely reelection campaign, Biden used the State of the Union to tell Americans he’s accomplished more than they may realize with massive investments in infrastructure and the Inflation Reduction Act.
McCarthy is third in line to the presidency, seated behind Biden, as the top elected Republican in the country. He wields huge amounts of power over what can be done. They’ll have to work together.
Biden offered some niceties for all of the congressional leaders. Many Americans will be hearing Jeffries for the first time. Read more about him.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
What Have We Learned in Biden’s First Four Years? A Brief History of Progress, Resilience, and Ambiguity in the United States
Pelosi stepped down from Democratic leadership after Democrats lost control of the House in November’s midterm elections. It’s an almost entirely new — and much younger — leadership team for the first time in years.
Biden’s number is accurate: the US economy added 12.1 million jobs between Biden’s first full month in office, February 2021, and January 2023. In the previous four-year presidential term, the number of jobs were added at a higher rate. Biden took office during a Pandemic, making comparison to other periods very difficult.
This was a pitch for reelection, asking people to look past their fears of inflation and economy and take a longer view of the Biden years so far.
As we gather here tonight, we are writing the next chapter in the great American story, a story of progress and resilience. When world leaders ask me to define America, I define our country in one word: Possibilities.
The parties worked together on a number of issues, including much-needed infrastructure spending that had eluded many presidents and the first gun legislation in years. But they remain far apart on other issues that are top of mind, like immigration reform and government spending.
While infrastructure and support for Ukraine remain two things with bipartisan support, having a GOP majority in the House will mean more scrutiny for this type of spending.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
Bipartisan Issues in the 2016 Election: From Violence Against Women to Marriage and the Respect for Marriage Act, from the First Reionization to Insurrection 2.0
Since becoming President, I’ve signed over 300 bipartisan laws. From the Violence Against Women Act to the Electoral Count Reform Act to the Respect for Marriage Act, all of which protect the right to marry the person you love.
These are serious issues. There will be no insurrection 2.0 if there is the Electoral Count Act. The Respect for Marriage Act signified a complete evolution on the issue of marriage in a generation.
The people told us something. Power for power’s sake, conflict for the sake of conflict, and fighting for the sake of fighting get us nowhere.
Working together is not just a request. Biden will need to work with Republicans in order to raise debt limit, fund the government and many other things.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
Fact Checked: The Job Market and the Unemployment Rates in President Biden’s Correspondence to Ginibre’s Theorem
To build an economy from the bottom up and the middle out, not from the top down. When the middle class performs well, the poor and wealthy do very well. We all do well.
A job is more than just a paycheck, as my Dad used to say. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect. It’s about being able to look your kid in the eye and say, “Honey –it’s going to be OK,” and mean it.
Biden’s brag about the jobs data was riskier than usual because the Fed is trying to slow down the job market and increase the unemployment rate in order to combat inflation.
Biden’s claims are accurate. The unemployment rate for Black or African American people in January was 5.2%, just below the record low of 5.3% set in August. The Hispanic or Latino unemployment rate was 4.5% in January, not far from the record low of 4.0% set in September but a jump from the 4.1% rate in December.
Biden’s figures are correct; however, the “good-paying” qualifier is subjective and can’t be independently verified for each of those 800,000-plus positions.
Biden’s claim is correct. He didn’t state that gas prices are higher than when he was in office. Presidential policy has limited impact on gas prices because of a complex interplay of supply and demand factors.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law: A High-Propensity Business World with a Chip Factory in 2021 and 2022 (Implications from the Bipartisan Initiative)
This is true. There were more business applications in 2020 than in any year since 2005 and there will be more business applications in 2022, the first year that the federal government will release this data. Not every application turns into a real business, but the number of “high-propensity” business applications — those deemed to have a high likelihood of turning into a business with a payroll — also hit a record in 2021 and saw its second-highest total in 2022.
Everything from cellphones to automobiles, and so much more, is powered by Semiconductors, the small computer chips the size of your fingertip. These chips were invented right here in America.
But in the last few decades, we lost our edge and we’re down to producing only 10%. We all witnessed what happened when chip factories overseas shut down.
Biden has not scoped a fact check on his prediction of future job creation. But his claim about companies having announced $300 billion in manufacturing investments during his presidency is accurate; the White House provided CNN with a list of these publicly announced investments. It is a fact that companies end up putting less in than they initially announce.
Now we’re coming back because we came together to pass the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the largest investment in infrastructure since President Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System.
These Projects will put hundreds of Thousands of people to work in order to rebuild our highways, bridges, railroads, tunnels, ports and airports.
Building Back Better: The President’s Blue-Collar Economic and Climate Proposal as a First Step Towards Restoring the American Dream
Some of the lawmakers from last year were shown in the CNN report. They include Rep. Tom Emmer and Sen. Rand Paul.
One of the nation’s most congested freight routes carrying $2 billion worth of freight every day. Folks have been talking about fixing it for decades, but we’re finally going to get it done.
As Biden’s transformative legislative agenda looked all but dead, White House officials made a strategic decision to ditch its well-worn moniker: Build Back Better. It worked. Maybe the correlation wasn’t exactly a straight line, but Biden and his team resuscitated a scaled-back version of the economic and climate proposals that served as the cornerstone of the proposal. Biden had a new idea for what that agenda created, “We are building back pride.”
We want every child in America to be able to drink a glass of clean water, because 10 million homes and 400,000 schools have poisonous lead pipes.
My economic plan is about investing in places and people that have been forgotten. Many people have been left behind, or have been treated in a way that makes them invisible during the economic upheaval of the recent past.
Jobs are coming back, pride is coming back, because of the choices we made in the last two years. This is a blue-collar plan to create change in America.
Biden needs to convince Americans that his plan to transition the economy away from fossil fuels and increase government spending on infrastructure will create opportunities if they feel left behind.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
The Inflation Reduction Act Does Not Save Medicare for Diabetes Patients, Yet Congressman Biden Has been Moving Too Slow to Address the Problems of the Future
Too many of us lay in bed at night, wondering what will happen if our spouse gets cancer, our child gets sick, or we die, and wondering what the future will hold.
I am aware of it. The Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law by me so we can bring health care costs down so you can sleep better at night.
Every day, millions need insulin to control their diabetes so they can stay alive. Insulin has been around for 100 years. It costs drug companies just $10 a vial to make.
More than 20 million Americans are not on Medicare and include people with type I diabetes who need the medicine to survive.
This is a major issue for many Americans and it faces a big lobbying effort from pharmaceutical companies. Biden has been moving too slowly according to a consumer rights advocate and Texas congressman who wrote for CNN Opinion.
This law also caps out-of-pocket drug costs for seniors on Medicare at a maximum $2,000 per year when there are in fact many drugs, like expensive cancer drugs, that can cost up to $10,000, $12,000, and $14,000 a year.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
Biden’s Signed Tax Cut Law Could Have Saved Us $1.4 Trillion if We Reduced the Budget Deficit
This was another reference to the Inflation Reduction Act — that catchall bill Democrats passed. Biden was referring to a nurse’s tax rate rather than dollar figures when he talked about how much a nurse pays.
Most Americans still get health insurance through their employers, but interest has surged in plans offered to individuals under the Affordable Care Act.
It is a great irony of climate change politics that red states are often hurt more by it.
Biden promised to not raise taxes on people who make less than $400,000 per year, but his promises to get government to do more could challenge that.
We have learned a lot in recent years about how billionaires avoid paying taxes. Calls have grown to fix the tax system, but most tax laws, like the one Trump signed into law, move in the other direction, cutting taxes.
Businesses have argued that raising taxes will hurt their investment in the economy. They might put more investment into the business if there was more tax on corporate stock purchases.
Instead of cutting the number of audits of wealthy tax payers, I signed a law that will lower the budget deficit by $114 billion by cracking down on wealthy tax cheats.
Biden’s boast leaves out important context. It is true that the federal deficit fell by $1.7 trillion under Biden in the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years, including a record $1.4 trillion drop in 2022 — but it is highly questionable how much credit Biden deserves for this reduction. Biden did not mention that the primary reason the deficit fell so substantially was that it had skyrocketed to a record high under then-President Donald Trump in 2020 because of bipartisan emergency pandemic relief spending, then fell as expected when the spending expired as planned. Independent analysts believe that the effect of Biden’s actions has been to add to and projected future deficits.
Now that they have power in the House, Republicans are insisting on some unspecified spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt limit. Economists warn that defaulting on the debt could send the economy into a tailspin. This will be a big drama until June, when the debt limit must be raised.
Some of my Republican friends want to take the economy hostage unless I agree to their economic plans. All of you at home should know what their plans are.
McCarthy shook his head and there were shouts of “no” from Republicans. McCarthy said he would not cut Medicare and Social Security, even though he is not a Republican. But he also must appease fringe GOP members if he wants to remain speaker.
Biden ad-libbed in response to the shouts, “Contact my office, I’ll give you a copy of the proposal.” Even though he doesn’t think a majority of Republicans are for it, it is being proposed by some of you. Biden is referring to a proposal by a senator.
If we don’t respond, we won’t be threatened with default on the debt, and so we are not going to be. So folks, that’s right, all of us agree that Social Security and Medicare are off the books now. All right. We got unanimity,” he said to cheers.
This is about the easiest and most popular pledge for any American president to make. Biden kept going. “If anyone tries to cut Social Security, which apparently no one wants to do,” he said.
We have to wait and see what happens with Biden’s plan. Republicans have been cagey about what cuts they would make. The safety net programs and the defense budget will not be cut by McCarthy.
I will not raise taxes on anyone making under $400,000 a year. And I will pay for the ideas I’ve talked about tonight by making the wealthy and big corporations begin to pay their fair share.
There were multiple examples in this speech of Biden vilifying corporations and the wealthy — and a warning to them that he wants more taxes from them.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
What We Can Do About Taxes, Fees, and Pre-K: Ending the Boom to Work and Support Education for Children in the United States
Here’s my message to all of you out there: I have your back. We’re already preventing insurance companies from sending surprise medical bills, stopping 1 million surprise bills a month.
We’re protecting seniors’ lives and life savings by cracking down on nursing homes that commit fraud, endanger patient safety, or prescribe drugs they don’t need.
A long screed against junk fees was probably not on anyone’s State of the Union bingo card. They are an annoyance in modern commerce.
For example, 30 million workers had to sign non-compete agreements when they took a job. So a cashier at a burger place can’t cross the street to take the same job at another burger place to make a couple bucks more.
Let’s also make sure working parents can afford to raise a family with sick days, paid family and medical leave, and affordable child care that will enable millions more people to go to work.
This is true. The child poverty rate was cut in half by the expanded child tax credit. The enhancement accounted for the bulk of the reduction.
These are things that the Democrats wanted to deliver in the House. It’s good to think that they can do it if they have less power.
Democrats could not get unanimous support from Democrats to pass a universal pre-K program, making it less likely that they’d be able to defeat a filibuster.
Studies show that children who go to pre-school are nearly 50% more likely to finish high school and go on to earn a 2- or 4-year degree, no matter their background.
Let’s finish the job, connect students to career opportunities starting in high school and provide two years of community college, some of the best career training in America, in addition to being a pathway to a four-year degree.
The End of Covid-19: Calling for the End of the War for a Better Education? Sen. Joe Manchin’s 2024 Democrat-Membership Voted to Community Colleges
Democrats failed to create a community college program because they didn’t get the support from their own party. Biden did not mention Sen. Joe Manchin in the speech, but the West Virginia Democrat, who is up for reelection in 2024, loomed large over this portion. Manchin and Sinema refused to pass a more ambitious agenda because they didn’t want to be lumped together with the rest of the party. Manchin also refused to consider reforming the filibuster in the Senate.
During the time when schools were closed, let’s recognize how far we’ve come in the battle against the disease.
More than one million people died from Covid-19 in the US. According to a recent CNN report, it was still one of the top causes of death in the US in 2022, but the life expectancy has fallen by 2.5 years since 2020.
And as we emerge from this crisis stronger, I’m also doubling down on prosecuting criminals who stole relief money meant to keep workers and small businesses afloat during the pandemic.
Now, let’s triple our anti-fraud strike forces going after these criminals, double the statute of limitations on these crimes, and crack down on identity fraud by criminal syndicates stealing billions of dollars from the American people.
Republicans have also promised to investigate this type of fraud. As CNN’s Tami Luhby recently reported, pandemic jobless benefits fraud likely tops $60 billion.
This was an interesting transition from fears of violent crime, which Republicans have seized on, to frustration with police, which particularly affects Black Americans.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
The Last Stand: The First Lady of the George-Flavor-Governing-President-Biden-Sotu-Amast-Presidency-Vaughn-Wells
The parents of the young man who died last week are with us. There are no words to describe the heartbreak and grief of losing a child.
The parents of a murdered child received a standing ovation as they were applauded during the address. Here, RowVaughn and Rodney Wells stood up and received bipartisan applause, as first ladyJill Biden’s guests.
This was a moving event in the speech, with Nichols’ mom looking on and lawmakers under pressure to revive an attempt at new national policing standards
With the support of families of victims, civil rights groups, and law enforcement, I signed an executive order for all federal officers banning chokeholds, restricting no-knock warrants, and other key elements of the George Floyd Act.
That includes things that the majority of responsible gun owners support, like enhanced background checks for 18 to 21-year-olds and red flag laws keeping guns out of the hands of people who are a danger to themselves and others.
CNN’s Emma Tucker has a look at all gun control laws passed in 2022, including the federal legislation. However, a recent Supreme Court ruling has called into question the foundation of many state gun laws. There is more to be said about gun laws.
He wrestled the gun away from the person who had just killed 11 people at another dance studio, and then found the courage to act.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
Immigration Reform: Finding a Way to Protect the Children’s Future in the Presence of Regimes of Abortion and Inhuman Explosions
Bipartisan efforts to pass a comprehensive immigration law failed during the Bush and Obama administrations. This is an issue where there is a will among Republicans and Democrats to act, although they would go in very different directions.
In the last few months, we have a record number of personnel working to secure the border, arresting 8,000 people and confiming over 23,000 pounds of Fentanyl.
If you won’t pass my comprehensive immigration reform, at least pass my plan to provide the equipment and officers to secure the border. There is a path to citizenship for those on temporary status, essential workers, and Dreamers.
This sounded like it would be possible to combine a Republican priority on border funding with a Democratic priority to help Dreamers, who were brought to the US as children.
The Vice President and I are doing everything we can to protect access to reproductive health care and safeguard patient privacy. But already, more than a dozen states are enforcing extreme abortion bans.
If Republicans could pass a national abortion ban through the House — a very big if — it seems extremely unlikely that kind of thing could pass through the Senate, where a 60-vote supermajority is required for most policy issues and there are multiple Republicans who support some version of abortion rights.
For such a defense matters to us because it keeps the peace and prevents open season for would-be aggressors to threaten our security and prosperity. One year later, we have a good answer.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
The U.S. is Doing What it Takes to Make Sense of What China Can Do: An Annotated Fact Checked President Biden-Sotu
There is clearly majority support to continue supporting Ukraine with US firepower, but there are also powerful skeptics in the new GOP majority. McCarthy has promised there will be no more “blank checks” for Ukraine.
Since the US and China are building their militaries, this was important. The downing of a Chinese spy balloon was just a symptom of that larger rivalry, which ranges from trade to military power.
There will be no apologies for investing to make America strong. Investing in American innovation, in industries that will define the future, and that China’s government is intent on dominating.
There is a clear and growing domestic political divide over how strongly to stand up to China. Many Republicans have criticized Biden for not doing more.
Biden also added an emphatic ad-lib here. “Name me a world leader who’d change places with (Chinese President) Xi Jinping,” he said. I need to know your name one. Give the name of the person.
It’s also interesting to note that all of the foreign policy he mentioned was focused on this. He did not mention the recent devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria.
America is rallying the world again to meet those challenges, from climate and global health, to food insecurity, to terrorism and territorial aggression.
Biden preached the need for US economic independence but wanted the US to be a leader in trade and democracy.
bridges are being formed between partners in the Atlantic and Pacific. Those who bet against America are learning how wrong they are.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
Do More on Mental Health? After the Memphis teen killed, two more lives were saved, but we shouldn’t forget about the Memphis tragedy
The deaths of two young people in this speech were tragic. The police officer in Memphis that killed Nichols was also killed by the deadly Fentanyl drug.
There is room for both sides of the aisle to agree on the drug. Biden talked about harsher penalties when there has been a move towards treatment of drug abusers in recent years.
Second, let’s do more on mental health, especially for our children. When millions of young people are struggling with bullying, violence, trauma, we owe them greater access to mental health care at school.
And it’s time to pass bipartisan legislation to stop Big Tech from collecting personal data on kids and teenagers online, ban targeted advertising to children, and impose stricter limits on the personal data these companies collect on all of us.
Is there another area of bipartisan compromise? Republicans also want to crack down on Big Tech, but they are interested in rooting out a perceived bias against conservatives.
Our nation has a sacred obligation to equip its citizens and care for them when they return from harm’s way, so we should do more.
There is a proven program that recruits veterans to help other veterans understand what they are going through and get the help that they need, as well as a proven program that expands mental health screenings.
Rethinking the American Dream: Why We Need to Stand Up for Our Country, and Why We Can Do It Together: An Annotated Fact Checked by the US President
Our goal is to cut the cancer death rate by at least 50% over the next 25 years. Turn more cancers from death sentences into treatable diseases. And provide more support for patients and families.
For the lives we can save and for the lives we have lost, let this be a truly American moment that rallies the country and the world together and proves that we can do big things.
The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, is arguably the most successful US foreign policy in decades. It expires at the end of this year, although there will certainly be a push to renew it. It demonstrates that the Republicans and Democrats can work together, just like Bush did. Biden notably wants that to be the model for his cancer effort.
A few months ago, the home of the then Speaker of the House was attacked by someone who was upset with the Big Lie. The insurrectionists used the same language that they chanted on January 6th.
We need to speak out. Political violence is not allowed in America. In America, we must protect the right to vote, not suppress that fundamental right. We don’t subvert the will of the people by honoring the election results. We must respect the law and trust our institutions of democracy.
Republicans lost in many of the marquee races that feature election-denying candidates. The test of US democracy will be if faith in elections begins to repair after the recent erosion.
Biden made the effort to protect democracy sound like a war here. Generations being called on to protect democracy has echoes in previous wars.
My fellow Americans, we meet tonight at an inflection point. One of those moments that only a few generations ever face, where the decisions we make now will decide the course of this nation and of the world for decades to come.
We are not bystanders to history. We aren’t powerless when the forces try to confront us. It is within our power, of We the People. The time for choosing is at hand as we face the test of our time.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
The State of the Union: Stop Pentanyl Production, Sale, and Trafficking by a Major Surge in the United Kingdom at a Drug-Free Border Station
That we, too, are equal in the image of God. A nation that stands out in the world. The nation is in a new age.
The State of the Union is strong because the soul of this nation is strong, because the spine of this nation is strong, and because people of this nation are strong.
Let’s launch a major surge to stop fentanyl production, sale, and trafficking, with more drug detection machines to inspect cargo and stop pills and powder at the border.