Fighting for American Prosperity
This week, as the nation listened and watched, President Biden gave the second State of the Union address of his presidency. Over the last year the American people have struggled under historic inflation, rising crime rates, and severe economic uncertainty. In the week prior, we also witnessed an airborne intelligence gathering tool with confirmed ties to the Chinese Communist Party traveling across nearly the entire continental United States. With the same slowness to act which has characterized his administration, Biden permitted the spy balloon to remain in U.S. airspace for more than a week to potentially collect data over several sensitive military sites along the way before finally ordering our military to shoot down the spy balloon.
In light of the severity of these issues, you might think the president would strike a humble tone with a willingness to implement new, effective solutions and cooperate with those who have proposed ideas other than his own. On the contrary, his address took no responsibility for the failures of his administration and lacked bipartisan goodwill. Taking a close look at the policy claims of President Biden’s speech shows a number of misleading claims and a failure to lead.
Reckless spending under one-party, Democrat rule in Washington over the last two years has led to a dead end for our nation’s fiscal health. However, the president’s scare tactics brazenly blamed Republicans for the debt crisis and wanting to cut Social Security and Medicare. This is demonstrably false. Republicans’ Commitment to America plan promises to save and strengthen Social Security and Medicare. The only people talking about cutting Social Security and Medicare right now are the Democrats resorting to mudslinging.
The president’s discussion of tax policy offered little in terms of a way forward. His administration has made clear their goal to tax working families and small businesses as much as possible through bank surveillance efforts, onerous new reporting requirements for low-dollar electronic bill-sharing, more than 80,000 new IRS agents to target taxpayers, and now a new program to target service industry workers’ tips. Addressing the debt crisis in good faith would require curbing the Democrats’ spending addiction. Yet they have shown no interest in this.
In his speech, the President alluded to the hundreds of thousands of American lives lost to the fentanyl overdose epidemic, but he made no mention of his efforts to undermine promising border security policies, including the Remain in Mexico policy and Title 42. Poor border security has resulted in a humanitarian crisis and protecting lives should not be a partisan issue. With a new majority in the House, Republicans are eager to work together to secure the border and make our homeland safer from lethal drugs such as fentanyl.
Coming into this week, President Biden had some explaining to do. As four in ten Americans – the highest levels in nearly 40 years—say they are worse off under the Biden presidency, more and more Americans are speaking up about its damaging policy failures. Unfortunately, rather than explanations, the president chose to cast blame on others and shirked responsibility.
The response delivered by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders showed a better way forward a change in leadership can offer. House Republicans are eager to ensure hardworking families are not subject to higher taxes, expanded audits, and more government mandates. Our priorities are the people’s priorities. We won’t let up in the fight to leave our children with a country better off than we found it. And I won’t stop fighting for the good life on behalf of Nebraskans.
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