Reviewing Biden's State of The Union

Photo courtesy of the White House

American President Joe Biden addressed a joint-session of Congress this week, on Tuesday, February 7th, to take stock of what he has accomplished after two years in office and his priorities for the remainder of his presidential term. The stakes of this speech were high: recent polls found that 62% of Americans thought Biden had not achieved much during his presidency, 70% felt that the country was on the wrong track, and only 37% of Democrats want him to seek a second term. In order to secure a place at the top of the Democrats 2024 ticket, and have a shot at re-election, Biden needed to change the public's mind on all of these issues. 

Biden’s performance projected strength—he used the address to outline a litany of real policy achievements that will resonate with the American people. 

Biden started off by talking about jobs, and for good reason, the US added an expectation-shattering 517,000 jobs in the month of January: “I stand here tonight after we have created, with the help of many people in this room, 12 million new jobs.” Conservatives rightly  point out that most of that gain can be attributed to jobs lost during the Covid-19 pandemic. But even still, job gains have exceeded pre-pandemic levels by over 2.7 million, and the unemployment rate has fallen to 3.4%, the lowest level since 1969. 

Constantly referring to the economy, Biden talked about the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which has already seen great success, funding 20,000 separate infrastructure projects. He highlighted a few of the new consumer protection standards that his administration has created: capping monthly insulin payments at $35 for seniors, cutting credit card late fees from an average of $30 to $8, and preventing surprise medical billing. Commenting on how cutting these so-called junk fees will help people, Biden explained “They add up to hundreds of dollars a month. They make it harder for you to pay your bills or afford that family trip. I know how unfair it feels when a company overcharges you and gets away with it. Not anymore.” 

The President’s speech was riddled with punchy statements, confidently delivered, which described tangible policy achievements. Biden succeeded at demonstrating he is energetic, and has enough cognitive function remaining to deliver an hour-long, primetime address to the nation. The image of Biden as a gaffe-prone old man suffering from a dementia-like illness is one that Republicans hope to capitalise on in the next election; many Democrats have even come to the same view. He managed to delay his expulsion from the height of power to a ‘political hospice-care’ of sorts, but given that Biden has already exceeded the age of 80, a lot can happen between now and the upcoming 2024 election. 

Biden went on to call on Congress to enact various pieces of legislation, and discussed his plans for the future. He called for the passage of the PRO Act, a labour-friendly piece of legislation, and also highlighted other stalled legislative priorities, such as the George Floyd Act—many aspects of which he incorporated into federal law enforcement via executive order—and his attempt to extend the Child Tax Credit, which temporarily decreased child poverty by nearly 50%. It is true that Republicans overwhelmingly opposed these measures and prevented them from achieving the 60 vote threshold required in the Senate. But if Biden was truly committed to enacting meaningful reform, he would drop his opposition to eliminating the Senate filibuster, pressure conservative Democratic Senators Manchin and Sinema to do the same, and end the system that lets 41 votes defeat 59.  

Biden’s implementation of “new standards to require all construction materials used in federal infrastructure projects to be made in America” was met with thunderous applause from Democrats and Republicans alike. Some have pointed out that economic protectionism in this case will make his own infrastructure projects more expensive, and therefore more difficult to achieve, but following through on the failed promises of Trump and his “America First” project is political gold. 

This brief moment of bi-partisanship was anything but the norm. Interaction between Biden and the Congressional Republicans seated in the audience got progressively combative as the night went on. Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene—the anti semitic, islamophobic, conspiracy theorist who Republicans recently appointed to the prestigious House Oversight and Homeland Security Committee—screamed “Liar!” from across the chamber when Biden claimed that “some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset. I’m not saying it’s the majority.” She was joined by most of the Republican caucus booing and jeering in suggesting that Biden was not telling the truth. To believe this you would’d have to ignore the Chairman of the Republican Senatorial Committee’s recent plan to sunset [end] the programs and Republicans long-documented history of trying to cut Social Security, Medicare, and other entitlement programs. Biden was shouted down by Republicans when discussing the border and was laughed at for saying that we would only need oil & gas as a source of energy for another decade. They found that suggestion ridiculous because most elected Republicans either don’t believe climate change is happening or think it does not pose a threat.

While Republicans jeering of Biden made the speech more entertaining, most Americans will find it childish and unnecessary. Even Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, seated directly behind Biden, was seen telling his colleagues to quiet down. 

But despite the odds, Biden delivered a solid State of the Union speech, and exceeded the relatively low expectations many had of him by leaps and bounds. His focus on concrete policy achievements and constant reference to the economy made his address more tangible for the American people. His ‘man-of-the-people’ style rhetoric felt authentic, and his ability to do so with substantially less gaffes than usual combined to make the address one of the best speeches of his presidency. 

While I predict his performance will give him a slight bump in the polls, I doubt it is sufficient to overcome the negative perception that most Americans have of his handling of the economy. Regardless, having left Republican’s with little ammunition to use against him, Biden walked away from Tuesday night's address with a victory under his belt, and some sort of pathway to a second term still intact.