Biden tackles his second State of the Union Address

President Joseph Biden made his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday night in front of the new Congress, new Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Heavily focusing on his running theme of rebuilding and uniting the country, Biden said his vision for the country is “to restore the soul of the nation. To rebuild the backbone of America, the middle class. To unite the country. We’ve been sent here to finish the job.”
Starting off with many highlights from his two years in office, Biden mentioned the unemployment rate being the lowest it has been in 50 years at 3.4%. The Biden Administration created 800,000 manufacturing jobs, which is the fastest growth the country has seen in the last 40 years.
“Gas prices are down $1.50 a gallon since their peak,” Biden said, adding that inflation in general has been going down in the past six months. Many Americans have been greatly impacted by higher gas prices, but Biden ensured they will keep going down.
The main topics of the speech were heavily focused on infrastructure, healthcare and the economy. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law caused unanimous cheering among the audience. This law is one of the largest infrastructure investments that has already funded over 20,000 infrastructure projects.
Biden took a strong stance against Big Pharma, “Big Pharma has been unfairly charging people hundreds of dollars – and making record profits. Not anymore,” said Biden. Making sure his colleagues understand if they try to raise the cost of prescription drugs, he will veto it.
The ongoing federal debt crisis was mentioned with “nearly 25% of the entire national debt, a debt that took 200 years to accumulate,” from the Trump Administration.
In previous years, the debt ceiling has been lifted three times without anything preventing that process from happening. Until now, Biden said “other Republicans say if we don’t cut Social Security and Medicare, they’ll let America default on its debt for the first time in our history.”
This caused some commotion coming from the Republican side of the chamber, especially from Rep. Marjorie Greene Taylor (R-Ga.) shouting “liar” to Biden from across the room.
Besides this moment of division, there were some moments of unanimity between Republicans and Democrats. There were bipartisan rounds of applause, especially for topics like public school teachers getting a raise and giving law enforcement the right training.
Topics such as gun control, the climate crisis, reproductive rights, childcare, LGBTQ+ rights, immigration and the Russia-Ukraine war were only mentioned briefly.
Biden concluded his remarks by recognizing that we need to see each other not as enemies but as Americans.
“Democracy must not be a partisan issue. It must be an American issue,” he said. .“We are the United States of America and there is nothing, nothing beyond our capacity if we do it together,” causing the chamber to erupt into standing ovations. Both Democratic and Republican senators and representatives appear ready to take on their agendas.