In his first official State of the Union speech, President Joe Biden on Tuesday night addressed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, rising inflation at home, an ongoing border crisis, and a fading COVID-19 pandemic.
Biden, who also addressed a joint session of Congress last spring, made numerous assertions during his State of the Union address. It lasted just over an hours.
“My report is this: The state of the union is strong—because you, the American people, are strong,” Biden, who has been criticized as divisive, said at the end of his speech, adding:
We are stronger today that we were a decade ago. We will be stronger in a year than we are today. We have the opportunity to overcome the challenges we face. And we will, as one people.
Here’s a fact check of some of the president’s comments, which came as he continues to earn low job approval ratings from Americans.
1. ‘We Were Ready’ for Putin’s Invasion
Biden addressed the biggest issue in international politics—Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unfolding invasion of Ukraine, and the response from the United States and its allies.
“Throughout our history we’ve learned this lesson—when dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos,” Biden said. “They keep moving. And the costs and threats to America and the world keep rising.”
He also noted that the United States is part of the NATO military alliance consisting of 30 countries.
“It matters. American diplomacy matters,” Biden said. “Putin’s war was premeditated and unprovoked. He rejected efforts at diplomacy. He thought the West and NATO wouldn’t respond. He believed he could split us here at home. Putin was wrong. We were ready.”
It is not clear how prepared the Biden administration or its allies were.
Since November, Russian troops have been encamped at the Ukrainian border. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian President urged BidenAs a preventive measure, sanctions could be imposed on Russia to stop an invasion.
The Biden administration and European allies imposed sanctions on Russian financing a day after Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, several Republicans and Democrats agreedAt that time, it is necessary to impose more severe sanctions.
Also, upon announcing the sanctions package, Biden said: “The sanctions we’ve imposed exceed SWIFT. The sanctions we imposed exceed anything that has ever been done.”
Two days later, however, European countries agreed to block RussiaSWIFT is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. It is the international primary banking system. This could possibly eliminate Russia from global finance.
Under the Trump administration’s policies, the United States became a net exporter of oil starting in 2018, a development that boosted the nation’s energy independence.
The Biden administration increased green energy projectsAt the expense of fossil fuels, nuclear energy, and other added regulatory burdensConcerning the oil and natural-gas industry. By executive order, Biden shut down the Keystone XL pipeline project to move oil from Canada to the U.S. and he effectively greenlighted financing of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline to carry natural gas to Germany.
Upon Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden and Germany reversed courseNord Stream 2 pipeline.
During his remarks Tuesday night, Biden said, “Tonight, I can announce that the United States has worked with 30 other countries to release 60 million barrels of oil from reserves around the world.”
However, only half of that amount (30 million barrels) will be imported from the U.S.
2. State of the Economy, Employment Market
Biden didn’t shy away from touting his accomplishments on the economy and job market as the nation began to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In fact—our economy created over 6.5 million new jobs just last year, more jobs created in one year than ever before in the history of America,” Biden said. “Our economy grew at a rate of 5.7% last year, the strongest growth in nearly 40 years, the first step in bringing fundamental change to an economy that hasn’t worked for the working people of this nation for too long.”
In fact, the U.S. added about 6.5million jobs during the year Biden was president. largest increaseA president’s first year in office.
This increase was despite the widespread shutdown of the American economy during and after the pandemic. The total number is far lower than what it was under President Donald Trump in 2020 when the U.S. lost 9.5 million jobs.
Worse, the U.S. faces a serious shortage of labor, with a near-record 11 million job openings.
“Job openings—currently at 10.9 million—are 40% above the pre-pandemic record, and more than double the prior 10-year average,” wrote Rachel Greszler, a labor expert at The Heritage Foundation, parent organization of The Daily Signal.
“Consequently, employers are struggling, with 49% of businesses reporting job openings that they’re unable to fill,” Greszler said.
And although the labor shortage has led to overall wage increases—5.7% over the past year—real wages have declinedInflation and other factors – approximately 2%
“Employers have raised wages at about the fastest rate in 15 years, as they compete for talent amid record job openings and quit levels,” CNBC reported. “But consumer prices for goods and services are rising at their fastest annual pace in four decades, eroding those gains for many Americans.” During Biden’s presidency, inflation hit its highest level since 1982.
3. Future Manufacturing Jobs
“All told, we created 369,000 new manufacturing jobs in America just last year,” Biden said.
He claimed that he had brought back manufacturing jobs in America. He claimed Ford and General Motors had helped create jobs. 11,000 4,000 jobsIt was, respectively, evidence that manufacturing is returning.
Heritage Foundation scholars claim that they are backed with data from the Bureau of Labor StatisticsAbout 179,000 Americans were employed in the manufacturing sector in 2021, compared to the previous year.
It’s possible that the Biden administration is counting vacant jobs in its calculations. Even with the increase in employment and the administration’s claims, though, the same Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicates that employment is not yet at pre-pandemic levels.
At one point, Biden also said: “Companies are choosing to build new factories here, when just a few years ago, they would have built them overseas.”
Heritage researchersThe manufacturing industry is an important part of the economy. It has been shown that America’s competitiveness is the best way to boost both manufacturing and the economy overall.
Biden’s policies thus far have failed to make America competitive, they say, so any perceived benefits from returning manufacturing jobs will be limited. Heritage scholars also say that buying American-made materials simply because they are made in America is a bad decision. say. They argueAmerican materials should only be made at home if they have an advantage over other countries in the production of those materials.
4. American Rescue Plan vs. 2017 tax cuts
Biden praised the American Rescue Plan, a COVID-19 relief bill that he co-authored with congressional Democrats.
“And unlike the $2 trillion tax cut passed in the previous administration that benefited the top 1% of Americans, the American Rescue Plan helped working people—and left no one behind,” he said.
Many analysts agree that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which was supported by then President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans in 2017, has been a benefit to all working Americans and not just to the top 1%.
The Daily Signal reported, “After passage of the bill,” that the Daily Signal had received the following: labor market improved.
Heritage Foundation analysts pointed out that tax cuts were most significant for Americans with low incomes and the smallest for those who are at the top 1%. Heritage’s calculations also indicate that the top 1% paid more after passage of the bill than before.
The Daily Signal reported that around 83,000 Americans had left their jobs to seek better options at the close of 2019, indicating a surge in job opportunities for the year following Trump’s tax cuts.
Heritage research shows that Biden’s American Rescue Plan hurt working people more than helped. Analysts warned that a $15 federal minimum wages would be a problem for millions of small businesses trying to survive during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Heritage researchIt is also evident that very little funding was used to help Americans recover from the effects of COVID-19. Only 5% of the $1.9 trillionApplied for related relief.
Take for example: $90 billionThis money was intended to bail out union pension plans that were already severely underfunded prior to the pandemic. Analysts said that the union bailout receives about twice as much funding than COVID-19 testing or contact tracing.
5. Assessing the Tax Burden
“Under my plan, nobody earning less than $400,000 a year will pay an additional penny in new taxes. Nobody,” Biden said.
This is incorrect.
Biden’s failed $4.6 trillion Build Back Better spending bill, which passed in the House of Representatives but met defeat in the Senate, would have increased taxes directly and indirectly for Americans who make less than $400,000 a year, analysts said.
The left-leaning Tax Policy Center noted that Biden’s plan would increase taxes on middle-income Americans.
“Taking into account all major tax provisions, roughly 20% to 30% of middle-income households would pay more in taxes in 2022,” the Tax Policy Center said, although it noted that these increases would be relatively small.
“Among those with a tax increase, low- and middle-income households would pay an additional $100 or less on average,” the center said. “Those making $200,000-$500,000 would pay an average of about $230 more.”
The Build Back better spending bill that Biden and congressional Democrats proposed would have raised the funds many other taxes. It would increase capital gain taxes and would increase tax rates on the corporate tax rate to 26.5%Which? indirectly decreases wages and increases consumer prices.
The plan also would raise nicotine taxes substantially. There are many ways to do this. these taxes would fall disproportionatelyLess affluent Americans.
6. ‘Lower Your Costs and Lower the Deficit’
Biden offered a plan that would lower inflation and create jobs.
“One way to fight inflation is to drive down wages and make Americans poorer. I have a better plan to fight inflation,” Biden said, adding:
Not your wages, but your costs. America should produce more semiconductors and cars. America needs more infrastructure. America’s goods move faster and more cheaply. There are more jobs that allow you to make a living in America. And instead of relying on foreign supply chains—let’s make it in America.
Biden went on to say: “My plan to fight inflation will lower your costs and lower the deficit.”
It’s not known what the actual cost estimate for Biden’s proposals will be. His past promises don’t have a strong record.
Last year, the president failed to sell Democrats’ Build Back Better spending bill as not adding a single penny to the national debt or the annual budget deficit.
However, the Congressional Budget Office determined that Democrats’ spending bill would increase the deficit by $3 trillionFrom 2022 to 2031 The bipartisan infrastructure plan, which was passed earlier with some Republican support will now be add $256 billion to the deficit, according to the CBO.
7. Fiscal Responsibility
Biden characterized his administration as fiscally responsible.
“By the end of this year, the deficit will be down to less than half what it was before I took office,” Biden said, adding that he is the “only president ever to cut the deficit by more than $1 trillion in a single year.”
According to The Associated Press, the budget deficit for 2021 was $2.77 trillion. That’s still the second-highest deficit on record after the $3.13 trillion the previous year, when Trump was still president.
“The deficits in both years reflect trillions of dollars in government spending to counteract the devastating effects of a global pandemic,” AP reported.
The budget deficit typically grows unusually high during a crisis, AP reported: “Before the deficit ballooned during two years of a global pandemic, the highest the biggest deficit had been a shortfall of $1.4 trillion in 2009 as the U.S. spent heavily to lift the country out of a severe recession following the 2008 financial crisis.”
Stil, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the budget deficit will drop to $1.15 Trillion in the current budget year. It will also fall below $1 Trillion between 2023-2025. The CBO however projects that the deficit will rise to $1 trillion annually between 2025 and 2031.
8. Rising Energy Costs
In his speech, Biden said he would “cut energy costs for families an average of $500 a year by combating climate change.”
He said that one of the most important ways to combat inflation is by combating climate change.
The president stated that Americans will save an average $500 annually by joining forces to combat climate changes.
Let’s provide investments and tax credits to weatherize your homes and businesses to be energy efficient and you get a tax credit; double America’s clean energy production in solar, wind, and so much more; lower the price of electric vehicles, saving you another $80 a month because you’ll never have to pay at the gas pump again.
The most effective way to promote environmentally friendly innovation is through economic freedom, Anthony Kim, a Heritage Foundation research fellow and editor of Heritage’s Index of Economic Freedom, writes.
“Countries with greater economic freedom tend to fare better on protecting the environment than countries with more government-directed economies,” Kim says.
In 2020, America already had spent “more than $100 billion” on wind and solar energy, despite the fact that “less than 10% of our energy comes from the wind and the sun,” Stephen Moore, a former visiting fellow at Heritage, wrote in an energy and economics report.
Wind and solar power are “expensive, unreliable, and unscalable,” Moore said.
Electric cars are the future Forbes reports that an “electric vehicle may or may not save money, depending upon a host of factors, which will vary depending upon your location, driving habits, and choice of vehicle.”
In 2022, electric vehicles could be more attractive to many Americans due to rising gas prices. According to the The Average Gasoline Price Report, February 2021, the average gasoline price was $2.50 per gallon. U.S. Energy Information Administration.It had risen by a full dollar to $3.50 a gallon last month.
Electric vehicle owners spend 60% less on gasoline in an average year. CNBC reports. An electric car can be charged at a commercial charging station. $11.50 and $45 per charge.
9. ‘Suppress’ and ‘Subvert’ the Vote
At one point in his address, Biden said: “The most fundamental right in America is the right to vote—and to have it counted. And it’s under assault. In state after state, new laws have been passed, not only to suppress the vote, but to subvert entire elections.”
The president called for the Senate to pass two federal election bills—the “Freedom to Vote Act” and the “John Lewis Voting Rights Act.”
He wasn’t specific about how new state laws would “suppress” voting or “subvert” the outcome.
19 states adopted new election reforms in 2021. The common themes of the laws were to expand voter ID requirements for mail-in ballots; curb the controversial practice of ballot harvesting that allows political operatives to collect and distribute large quantities of ballots and be present in a voter’s home when he or she votes; and require states to remove the names of dead voters and other ineligible voters from registration rolls.
Many states also banned private funding of election administration, in response to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s spending almost $400 million on funding election administration during 2020, primarily in Democrat-leaning jurisdictions.
As passed in 2021, Georgia’s new voting law—perhaps most criticized by Democrats—is demonstrably less restrictive than voting laws in Democrat-leaning states such as New York, Colorado, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Rhode Island.
Notably, Delaware, which was represented in the Senate from 1973 to 2009, will be able to vote in person for the first time in 2022 elections. The new Georgia voting law expanded early-in-person voting.
10. LGBTQ Rights and Equality Act
Biden made a point of addressing Americans who aren’t heterosexual.
“And for our LGBTQ+ Americans,” he said, “let’s finally get the bipartisan Equality Act to my desk. The onslaught of state laws targeting transgender Americans and their families is wrong.”
“As I said last year, especially to our younger transgender Americans, I will always have your back as your president, so you can be yourself and reach your God-given potential,” he said.
Conservatives oppose congressional Democrats’ Equality Act, currently bogged down in the Senate in part because of concerns that it would restrict religious freedom. It takes 60 votes to suspend debate and move to a floor vote, but with the chamber’s 50-50 split between parties, the bill is unlikely to move forward.
The Equality Act “effectively denies the existence of biological sex, of women as such, replacing it with an amorphous and undetectable ‘gender identity,’” Jay Richards, a senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society, tweeted Tuesday night.
Last year, 37 states introduced bills to prevent biological males who identify as women from competing on girls and women’s sports teams, and nine of these states passed such legislation.
“It used to not be controversial to observe that there are biological differences between boys and girls, and when it comes to athletics, there are, can be significant physical advantages for those who are born biologically male in terms of strength and size,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said during a Senate committee hearing in June.
Men have “larger hearts and lungs, more oxygenated blood, more fast-twitch muscle fiber, greater upper-body muscle mass, greater lower-body muscle mass, greater bone density,” writes Abigail Shrier, author of “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.”
“Even if a man later takes estrogen and artificially reduces the level of ‘bioactive’ testosterone in his body, he will not surrender these advantages,” Shrier writes.
You have an opinion on this article? Send an email to let us know your opinion. [email protected] and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Include the URL or headline of your article, along with your name and the address of your town or state.
