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Highlights
- Biden vows to reduce the fiscal deficit to less than half from when he took office by the end of 2022.
- President Biden acknowledges the pain inflicted by inflation on ordinary people.
- Democratic senators have largely praised the president for his concerns for American families.
In his first State of the Union address, President Joe Biden on Wednesday sought to revive his US$2 trillion “Build Back Better” economic plan, urging senators opposing the bill to reconsider their decisions.
Biden believes his flagship social-spending bill would be key to bringing down inflation, reducing the fiscal deficit, and spurring economic growth. But the lack of support from senators such as Joe Manchin has stopped its passage.
Manchin said that his reservations on the bill still holds. Responding to Biden’s appeal, the centrist Democrat said that he does not believe the government can “lower costs by spending more”.
The following are key takeaways from Biden’s State of the Union address:
- President Biden has acknowledged the pain inflicted by inflation on common people, but inflation kept increasing to a four-decade high.
- He highlighted the steps his administration has taken, including measures to remove supply-chain backlogs, to ease public difficulties.
- President Biden retreated his commitment to boost the capacity of domestic industries, such as automobile and semiconductor ventures and rebuild the roads and bridges that would lower costs.
- The President called on Congress to pass the several disputed parts of the Build Back Better bill, although he did not name them. Some of them include lowering the cost of prescription drugs and health and childcare subsidies.
- Biden vowed to bring down the fiscal deficit to less than half from when he took office by the end of 2022. He added that he is “the only President ever to cut the deficit by more than one trillion dollars in a single year.”
- Responding to President Joe Biden’s appeal, Democratic Senator Manchin said that he would support the bill only if the president manages to bring the “financial house in order”.
- Other Democratic senators, however, have largely praised the president for his concerns for the economically struggling American families.
- Michigan Democratic Senator Rashida Tlaib said only the progressives in her party had pushed hard for President Biden’s plan. But unfortunately, the obstructionists have helped the Republican Party, which “serves only the rich and powerful”, succeed.
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Source: Pixabay
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Ukraine crisis demands attention
President Biden’s administration has been busy playing hard diplomacy over the Russian invasion of Ukraine last week. Moscow has stepped up its military action in the past few days to force the Ukrainian reservists to surrender. The US and its European allies have announced a flurry of sanctions against Russia for the attack. Still, there has been no sign of the war abating.
The White House this week warned of more sanctions against Moscow, including isolation of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his economy, if the first tranche of sanctions fails.
“He thought he could split NATO, split Europe and split the United States,” Wall Street Journal quoted Biden as saying of Putin.
