The State of the Union: What Biden has Learned about Labor in the Presidency of the Obama Term (and what he didn’t)
Labor was unimportant in the decisions made by the Obama administration. “It’s the polar opposite with Biden. We’re included at the table ahead of time, before decisions are made.”
Gabriel Winant, a labor historian at the University of Chicago said that Mr. Biden has enjoyed in some ways in certain moments. It seems like he does not have the stomach to see the gestures.
Americans still view his presidency skeptically — he is under water in recent opinion polls — and a looming standoff over raising the national debt limit to pay the country’s bills could cause some chaos this year. GOP power in the House made it possible for Kevin McCarthy to put a political opponent behind Biden during the speech, a sign of the power Republicans now have.
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.
The Biden Years: An Anatomy of a Pregalactic Post-Democracy Biden-Bisen-Sotu
McCarthy is the top elected Republican in the country and third in line to the presidency, sitting behind Biden. He has great power over what can be made into law. They will have to work together.
Biden offered some niceties to the congressional leaders. This could possibly be the first time that many Americans have heard of Jeffries. You can read more about him.
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.
Between February of 2021. and January of 2023, the US economy added over 12 million jobs, according to Biden. It’s higher than the previous four-year presidential term, when there were fewer jobs added. However, it’s important to note that Biden took office in an unusual pandemic context that makes meaningful comparison to other periods very difficult.
This felt very much like a reelection pitch, asking people to look past their fears about inflation and the economy to take a longer view of the Biden years so far.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
The First Day of Democracy, the Next American Story: Progress, Resilience, and Possibilities in the U.S. House of Representatives
We are gathering here tonight to write the next chapter in the great American story, a story of progress and resilience. I define America 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.
Having a Republican majority in the House will bring more scrutiny to spending like infrastructure and support for Ukraine.
In fact, I signed over 300 bipartisan laws since becoming President. The Respect for Marriage Act is a legislation that protects the right to marry a person you love.
These are serious issues. The Electoral Count Act is a way to assure there will be no insurrection 2.0. The Respect for Marriage Act was seen as a complete evolution on the issue of marriage.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
Getting a Kick out of Biden’s Representation of Government and the Economy: Resolving Warfare During the First Reionization War
The people sent us a loud and clear message. It is possible that fighting for the sake of fighting gets us nowhere.
A request to work together isn’t the only thing that is working together. Biden will have to work with Republicans in the Congress if he is to raise the debt limit, fund the government, or do anything else.
To build an economy from the bottom up and the middle out, not from the top down. The poor have a ladder up if the middle class does well. We all do well.
As my Dad used to say, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It is about your dignity. It’s about respect. It is important for you to see your child and say, “It’s going to be OK,” and mean it.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
Biden’s State of the Workforce: Implications for Gas Prices, the Consumer’s Choice, and the Real Costs of Living
It was a gamble for Biden to brag about the jobs data because the Federal Reserve, by raising interest rates, is actively trying to slow down the job market and raise the unemployment rate as a way to combat inflation.
Biden’s claims are correct. The Black or African American unemployment rate was 5.4% in January 2023, just above the record low of 5.3% set in August 2019. The Hispanic unemployment rate was4.5% in January 2023, which was not far from the previous record low of 4% that was set in September 2019: however, it was a jump from the 4.1% rate in December 2022.
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. The price of gas was high when he took office, but he didn’t mention it today. There is a limited impact on gas prices that can be found by a complex interplay of supply and demand factors.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
The Rise and Fall of Business Applications: The Biden 2021 Census of the U.S. Turns 5.4 million Business Applications into a Business, and the High-Propensity Business Activity
This is true. There were about 5.4 million business applications in 2021, the highest number since 2005 (the first year for which the federal government released this data for a full year), and about 5.1 million business applications in 2022. 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.
Semiconductors, the small computer chips the size of your fingertip that power everything from cellphones to automobiles, and so much more. 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 saw what happened during the pandemic when chip factories overseas shut down.
Biden’s prediction of future job creation is beyond the scope of a fact check. 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’s worth noting that companies sometimes end up investing less than they initially announce.)
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was passed in order to invest in infrastructure, which is the largest investment in infrastructure in the past fifty years.
There are airports, ports, and snow-melting systems. Infrastructure projects big and small are scattered throughout the country. There are individual projects from CNN’s Katie Lobosco.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
Rep. Biden and Sen. Paul: A Blue-collar Plan to Rehabilitate America and Make a Difference in Your Life
Meet some of the lawmakers pictured in a CNN report from last year. Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona and Sen. Paul are among them.
Every day, one of the nation’s most congested freight routes carries $2 billion worth of freight. We are going to get it done after a long time, but people have been talking for decades.
Mr. Biden said that jobs are coming back and that pride is coming back after the choices they made in the last two years. “This is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America and make a real difference in your lives.”
We’re also replacing poisonous lead pipes that go into 10 million homes and 400,000 schools and childcare centers, so every child in America can drink clean water.
My economic plan is about investing in places and people that have been forgotten. Amid the economic upheaval of the past four decades, too many people have been left behind or treated like they’re invisible.
The choices we made in the last couple of years are bringing back jobs and pride. This is a blue-collar plan to rehabilitate America and make a difference in your life.
As Biden touts the promise of manufacturing jobs tied to a greener infrastructure, for instance, it’s unclear how many of these will be created and sustained within the current high-tech and financial services centered economy. He will need to provide security in the service sector by offering ways to expand access to those positions.
Inflation Reduction Act Revisited: Why President Biden is Moving Too Slowly, and How American Families can Lose Their Sleep
For example, too many of you lay in bed at night staring at the ceiling, wondering what will happen if your spouse gets cancer, your child gets sick, or if something happens to you.
I understand. The Inflation Reduction Act I signed was meant to bring down health care costs 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.
But there are millions of other Americans who are not on Medicare, including 200,000 young people with Type I diabetes who need insulin to save their lives.
The issue is important for many Americans but faces major lobbying by pharmaceutical companies. A consumer rights advocate and a Texas Democratic congressman wrote last month for CNN Opinion that Biden has been moving too slowly.
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/
Taxes and Walls in the White House: Why Republicans Are Taking the Economy Hostage? A CNN Analysis of Biden’s Debt Problem
Biden was talking here about the massive Inflation Reduction Act, passed by Democrats, which Republicans have written off as wasteful spending. The law includes what you read about.
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 feel more pain, writes CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein.
Biden pledges to not raise taxes on people who make less than $400,000 per year, but he also promises to get the government to do more.
We have learned how billionaires are able to avoid paying taxes. Tax laws like the one Trump signed into law, which cut taxes, are being called for to fix the tax system.
Businesses have argued that raising taxes on them will cut down on their investment back into the economy. Further raising a tax on corporate stock buybacks might encourage them to put more investment back in.
I signed legislation that will reduce the budget deficit by $114 billion by cracking down on high income tax dodgers.
Biden’s claim is correct. The national debt, now more than $31 trillion, increased by just under $8 trillion during Trump’s four years in office, in part because of Trump’s major tax cuts. In order to increase the debt in the Trump era, some of it was due to the trillions of dollars in emergency Covid-19 relief spending that passed with bipartisan support. The national debt spiked in the first half of 2020 after increasing gradually during Trump’s first three years in office, and because of spending required by safety-net programs that were created by previous presidents. It is the decisions made by the predecessors that make a big amount of spending under a president.
Republicans now have control of the House and are trying to force some 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 major drama until June or so, when the debt limit must be raised — or else.
Some of my Republican friends want to take the economy hostage unless I agree to their economic plans. You should know what their plans are.
McCarthy shook his head and there were shouts of “no” from Republicans. McCarthy has said he won’t cut Medicare or Social Security, which is different from the beliefs of most Republicans. If he wants to remain speaker, he needs to appease fringe GOP members.
Biden ad-libbed in response to the shouts, “Contact my office, I’ll give you a copy of the proposal.” He added that even though he doesn’t think it’s a majority of Republicans, “it’s being proposed by some of you.” Biden is referring to a proposal by Sen. Rick Scott.
If we don’t respond, we’re not going to be moved into Default on the Debt if we don’t do so. We all agree that Social Security and Medicare are off the books at the moment. 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 riffing. He says no one wants to cut Social Security.
We will have to wait and see what Biden’s plan actually does. Republicans have been notably cagey about what specific cuts they would impose. McCarthy said he wouldn’t be cutting the defense budget.
I will not raise taxes on anyone making under $400,000 a year. I will pay for ideas I talked about tonight by making the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share.
Biden vilified corporations and the wealthy and warned them that he wants more taxes from them in his speech.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
Keep Me Spiky: Stop Junk Fees and Save Your Kids from Exploring a New Program to Support Education and Education for Children in the United States
I want you to know that I have your back. We have stopped 1 million surprise medical 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. But they are a universally annoying part of 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 slashed almost in half by the expansion of the child tax credit. The enhancement accounted for the bulk of the reduction.
Again, these are things Democrats wanted to deliver when they controlled the House. To think they can do it now that they have less power sounds good in a speech, but is wishful thinking.
Democrats had designs on enacting a new universal pre-K program, but they could not get unanimous support from Democrats, much less defeat a filibuster.
Children who attend pre-school are 50% more likely to finish high school than children who don’t, and no matter their background, they’ll go on to get a two or four year degree.
A pathway to a four-year degree is provided with two years of community college, and career training is some of the best in America.
The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t been solved: State-of-the-art efforts against criminal spies, identity fraud, and the opioid epidemic
Democrats failed to bring about a universal community college program, the same thing as with universal pre-K. Biden didn’t mention Manchin in the speech, but the West Virginia Democrat is up for reelection in four years and he looms large over this portion. It was Manchin, along with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who refused to go along with party leaders and pass a more ambitious agenda last year. Manchin decided not to consider reform of the Senate’s filibuster.
And folks, in the midst of the COVID crisis when schools were closed, let’s also recognize how far we’ve come in the fight against the pandemic itself.
The total documented Covid-19 death toll in the US is more than 1.1 million. It was still among the top causes of death in the US in 2022, per early data, and the life expectancy has fallen by nearly 2.5 years since 2020, according to a recent report by CNN’s Deidre McPhillips.
As the crisis is healed, I am doubling down on my fight against criminals that stole relief money meant for workers and small businesses.
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. H1N1 unemployment benefits fraud is likely to top $60 billion, it was recently reported by CNN.
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/
A message from President-Ben-Sotu on gun control laws and reopening a fight against a gunman
The parents of the late Tyre Nichols are with us tonight. There are no words to describe the heartbreak and grief of losing a child.
The parents of the boy who died in a motorcycle accident received a standing ovation as they received their applause during the address. RowVaughn and Rodney Wells received applause from the crowd when they stood up.
In the speech, the mother of the man looked on and lawmakers were 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. The fight over gun laws is far from over.
In that instant, he found the courage to act and wrestled the semi-automatic pistol away from a gunman who had already killed 11 people at another dance studio.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
Immigration Reform in the Bipartisan Era of the Bush and Obama Administrations. How Will We End the War? The Case for Dreamers
Bipartisan efforts to pass a comprehensive immigration law failed during the Bush and Obama administrations. Although the will among Republicans and Democrats is very different, there is a desire to address this issue.
We now have a record number of personnel working to secure the border, arresting 8,000 human smugglers and seizing over 23,000 pounds of fentanyl in just the last several months.
If you won’t pass my comprehensive immigration reform, at least pass my plan to provide the equipment and officers to secure the border. Those on temporary status, farm workers, and essential workers have a pathway to citizenship.
This sounded like the kind of thing that could happen — pairing a largely Republican priority on more border funding with a largely Democratic priority to help Dreamers (undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children).
The Vice President and I are doing everything we can to protect reproductive health care. But already, more than a dozen states are enforcing extreme abortion bans.
It’s highly unlikely that the Senate will agree to a national abortion ban as 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 know the answer.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
Reply to the Comment on “Why America is a World Leader in the Cold War,” by Robert E. Biden, M. J. McConahan, A.J. McKay, C.M. McCarthy
The majority of Americans seem to want to support Ukraine with US weaponry, but there are also skeptics in the new GOP majority. McCarthy has promised that there will not be more blank checks forUkraine.
This is important since both the US and China are building their militaries. The downing of a chinese spy balloon is a symptom of the larger rivalry.
I will make no apologies that we are 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.
The political divide is growing over how to stand up to China. Many Republicans didn’t like how Biden did not do more.
Biden also added an emphatic ad-lib here. I want to know who a world leader is who would change places with the Chinese President. He said that he was talking to the man, the President, of China. “Name me one. Name me one.
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.
The world is once more being rallied by America to meet climate and global health, food insecurity, terrorism and territorial aggression.
There was a difference of opinion between Biden who advocated for economic independence but also wanted US to be a world leader in trade and democracy.
And bridges are forming between partners in the Pacific and those in the Atlantic. And those who bet against America are learning just how wrong they are.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
Biden and the Children of Adversaries: Resolving the Tragic Stories of Two People and a Families in Memphis, Tennessee
There were two stories of tragic and untimely deaths of young people in this speech: There were police encounters in Memphis that resulted in the death of two people.
There is room for both sides to agree on something. But it was interesting to hear Biden talk about harsher penalties when in recent years there has been a move toward more treatment for drug abusers.
Second, let’s do more on mental health, especially for our children. We need to give more access to mental health care at school for millions of young people who are struggling with issues like trauma and violence.
It is time to pass bipartisan legislation that would forbid Big Tech from collecting personal data on kids and teens online, Ban targeted advertising to children, and impose stricter limits on the personal data these companies collect on all of us.
Another area for compromise between Republicans and Democrats? Republicans also want to crack down on Big Tech, but they are interested in rooting out a perceived bias against conservatives.
It is a sacred obligation for our nation to equip those we send into harm’s way and care for them when they come home.
The VA is doing everything it can, including expanding mental health screenings and a proven program that recruits veterans to help other veterans understand what they’re going through and get the help they need.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
The Big Lie: A Cold War that We Cannot Let Us Live Without And We Can’t Give Up On The Future Of Our Country
The goal is to cut the cancer death rate by at least 50% over the next 25 years. Turn death sentences into cures for diseases. And provide more support for patients and families.
Let’s make this a truly American moment that rallies the country and the world together for the sake of lives lost and for the sake of lives saved.
In the mid-nineties, President Bush led a bipartisan effort to change the fight against HIV/AIDS. It’s been a huge success.
The Speaker of the House and his family were the targets of political violence a few months ago because of the Big Lie. Using the very same language that insurrectionists who stalked these halls chanted on January 6th.
We have 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 honor the will of the people and don’t try to subvert it. We must uphold the rule of the law and restore trust in our institutions of democracy.
It is notable that Republicans lost in many of the marquee races featuring election-denying candidates last November. It will be a test of US democracy to see if faith in elections, eroded in recent years, begins to repair.
Biden made the effort to protect democracy sound like a war. Generations being called on to protect democracy is similar to the wording of previous foreign 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 don’t care about history. We will not be powerless before the forces that are against us. It’s in our power to make it happen. We are facing the test of our time and the time for choosing is at hand.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/02/annotated-fact-checked-president-biden-sotu/
The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: A Study of a White Working-Class Voter in New York Times/Siena College
That all of us are created equal in the image of God. A nation is a beacon to the world. A nation that is in a state of change.
Because the soul of this nation is strong, because the people of this nation are strong, and because the state of the union is strong.
In a New York Times/Siena College poll in September, 59 percent of white working-class voters said Republicans were the party of the working class, compared with 28 percent who chose Democrats. Sixty-eight percent of these voters said they agreed more with Republicans than Democrats on the economy, while just 25 percent picked Democrats. White working-class voters sided with Republicans on a number of issues, such as opposing gun control, banning illegal immigration, and seeing gender as determined at birth.
Democrats are trying to convince white voters of the benefits of better well-being so that they will focus on the economy instead of social policy.
He highlighted his efforts to lower insulin costs and cited pocketbook issues recognizable to almost any consumer — what he called “junk fees.” He identified “exorbitant” bank overdraft charges; credit card late fees; “resort fees” charged by hotels; change-of-service fees by cable and internet providers; and airline “surcharges.”
CNN Politics: A Political Analysis of the Presidential Campaign on Tuesday, April 30: Pennsylvania’s New Democrat Electoral Determendation
The reporters of the Times cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. Participants in marches or rallies in support of a movement can include donating money to or raising money for a political candidate.
Democrats are taking a similar path. Thousands of state jobs would no longer require a four-year college degree, after Pennsylvania’s new Democratic governor signed an executive order.
Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is a writer, editor and author of 25 books, including the New York Times best-seller, “Myth America: HistoriansTake on the Biggest lies and Legends About Our Past”. Follow him on Twitter @julianzelizer. The views he expresses in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.
There was good reason for the Democrats to cheer during Biden’s address. The kind of populism that the president embraced was an alternative to the cultural red meat that the Republican Party likes to throw at middle class Americans in order to soft-pedal their economic agenda which has more to do with benefit to higher income people.
On Tuesday, Biden empathized with workers struggling to make ends meet, spoke about restoring “pride in what we do,” and touted his vision of building “an economy from the bottom up and the middle out, not the top down.”
Biden’s Economic Populist Support of Social Security and Medicare: A Challenge for an Expenditure that Saves Jobs in the Sunshine State
His Democratic successors continued this tradition, with great political success. The Fair Deal built on Roosevelt’s ideas and led to President Harry Truman’s defeat in the 1948 reelection campaign against New York Governor Thomas Dewey.
President Lyndon Johnson offered a full menu of economic support to working Americans, including Medicare and federal spending on education, as part of his Great Society. His landslide victory against the Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona in 1964 revolved around eviscerating his opponent’s opposition to core programs like Social Security that working families counted on. The attempt to achieve a kind of “moral capitalism” has been at the heart of the Democratic Party.
Biden has a very tough road ahead of him. While the president offered a robust vision of how federal investment has and could create jobs in key sectors such as the semi-conductor industry and infrastructure, the kinds of manufacturing jobs that were at the heart of federal investment between the 1930s and 1960s have vastly diminished and are not likely to return.
Biden needs to devote as much energy to combating this distrust as he does to the promise of more robust government intervention. There is good news for the president since voters often express very positive views of public policies when there is a shift from more abstract discussions of trust in the government.
The more that he can talk about concrete programs—as he is doing by raising the possibility of Republicans cutting Social Security and Medicare spending and repeatedly mentioning legislation that funds new local building projects or subsidizes clean vehicles —the more he can combat distrustful sentiment. Biden seems to be doing just that by traveling to the sunshine state to drive home his support for Social Security and Medicare, establishing a contrast to Sen. Rick Scott of Florida. Scott denied the accusations that he wanted to cut Social Security and Medicare, but appeared on CNN Thursday to keep his proposal to sunset federal programs every five years.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/09/opinions/bidens-economic-populism-hard-sell-zelizer/index.html
How to Win Over Swing Voters in the Confrontation with the Establishment of the Party’s Culture War Agenda and the Left-Right Campaign
This is a relatively intractable challenge, although we have seen in recent presidential elections that it still might be possible to win over swing voters, especially those who might be turned off by the GOP’s culture war agenda and the chaos many contemporary Republican politicians have sowed. The recent elections showed that it’s possible for voters to change their minds.