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LINK Letters From An American 02/27/2023

February 7, 2023

Heather Cox Richardson

And then there was President Joe Biden’s 2023 State of the Union address.

This is the annual event in our politics that gets the most viewers. Last year, 38.2 million people watched it on television and streaming services.

What viewers saw tonight was a president repeatedly offering to work across the aisle as he outlined a moderate plan for the nation with a wide range of popular programs. He sounded calm, reasonable, and upbeat, while Republicans refused to clap for his successes—800,000 new manufacturing jobs, 20,000 new infrastructure projects, lower drug prices—or his call to strengthen the middle class.

And then, when he began to talk about future areas of potential cooperation, Republicans went feral. They heckled, catcalled, and booed, ignoring House speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) attempts to shush them. At the State of the Union, in the U.S. Capitol, our lawmakers repeatedly interrupted the president with insults, yelling “liar” and “bullsh*t.” And cameras caught it all.

Extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), her hands cupping her wide open mouth to scream at the president, became the face of the Republican Party.

Biden began with gracious remarks toward a number of Republicans as well as Democrats, then emphasized how Republicans and Democrats came together over the past two years to pass consequential legislation. Speaker McCarthy had asked him to take this tone, and he urged Republicans to continue to work along bipartisan lines, noting that the American people have made it clear they disapprove of “fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict.”

For the next hour the president laid out a promise to continue to rebuild the middle class, hollowed out by 40 years of policies based on the idea that cutting taxes and concentrating wealth among the “job creators” would feed the economy and create widespread prosperity. He listed the accomplishments of his administration so far: unemployment at a 50-year low, 800,000 good manufacturing jobs, lower inflation, 10 million new small businesses, the return of the chip industry to the United States, more than $300 billion in private investment in manufacturing, more than 20,000 new infrastructure projects, lower health care costs, Medicare negotiations over drug prices, investment in new technologies to combat climate change. He promised to continue to invest in the places and people who have been forgotten.

Biden described a national vision that includes everyone. It is a modernized version of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, and he very clearly invited non-MAGA Republicans to embrace it. He thanked those Republicans who voted for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, then tweaked those who had voted against it but claimed credit for funding. He told them not to worry: “I promised to be the president for all Americans. We’ll fund your projects. And I’ll see you at the ground-breaking.”

But then he hit the key point for Republicans: taxes. To pay for this investment in the future, Biden called for higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy. He noted that “in 2020, 55 of the biggest companies in America made $40 billion in profits and paid zero in federal income taxes.” “That’s simply not fair,” he said. He signed into law the requirement that billion-dollar companies have to pay a minimum of 15%—less than a nurse pays, he pointed out—and he called for a billionaire minimum tax. While he reiterated his promise that no one making less than $400,000 a year would pay additional taxes, he said “no billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a school teacher or a firefighter.” He also called for quadrupling the tax on corporate stock buybacks.

Republicans consider these proposals nonstarters because their whole vision is based on the idea of cutting taxes to free up capital. By committing to higher taxes on the wealthy, Biden was laying out a vision that is very much like that from the time before Reagan. It is a rejection of his policies and instead a full-throated defense of the idea that the government should work for ordinary Americans, rather than the rich.

And then he got into the specifics of legislation going forward, and Republicans lost it. The minority party has occasionally been vocal about its dislike of the State of the Union since Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouted “You lie!” at President Obama in 2009 (Obama was telling the truth); a Democrat yelled “That’s not true” at Trump in 2018 as he, in fact, lied about immigration policy. But tonight was a whole new kind of performance.

Biden noted that he has cut the deficit by more than $1.7 trillion (in part because pandemic programs are expiring) and that Trump increased the deficit every year of his presidency, even before the pandemic hit. And yet, Congress responded to the rising debt under Trump by raising the debt limit, cleanly, three times.

Biden asked Congress to “commit here tonight that the full faith and credit of the United States of America will never, ever be questioned.” This, of course, is an issue that has bitterly divided Republicans, many of whom want to hold the country hostage until they get what they want. But they can’t agree on what they want, so they are now trying to insist that Biden is refusing to negotiate the budget when, in fact, he has simply said he will not negotiate over the debt ceiling. Budget negotiations are a normal part of legislating, and he has said he welcomes such talks. Tonight, once again, he asked the Republicans to tell the American people what, exactly, they propose.

And then Biden did something astonishing. He tricked the Republicans into a public declaration of support for protecting Social Security and Medicare. He noted that a number of Republicans have called for cutting, or even getting rid of, Social Security and Medicare. This is simply a fact—it is in Senator Rick Scott’s (R-FL) pre-election plan; the Republican Study Committee’s budget; statements by Senators Mike Lee (R-UT), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Ron Johnson (R-WI); and so on—but Republicans booed Biden and called him a liar for suggesting they would make those cuts, and they did so in public.

Seeming to enjoy himself, Biden jumped on their assertion, forcing them to agree that there would be no cuts to Social Security or Medicare. It was budget negotiation in real time, and it left Biden holding all the cards.

From then on, Republican heckling got worse, especially as Biden talked about banning assault weapons. Biden led the fight to get them banned in 1994, but when Republicans refused to reauthorize that law, it expired and mass shootings tripled. Gun safety is popular in the U.S., and Republicans, many of whom have been wearing AR-15 pins on their lapels, booed him. When he talked about more work to stop fentanyl production, one of the Republican lawmakers yelled, “It’s your fault.”

In the midst of the heckling, Biden praised Republican president George W. Bush’s bipartisan $100 billion investment in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment.

And then, in this atmosphere, Biden talked about protecting democracy. “For the last few years our democracy has been threatened, attacked, and put at risk,” he said. “Put to the test here, in this very room, on January 6th.”

With lawmakers demonstrating the dangerous behavior he was warning against, he said: “We must all speak out. There is no place for political violence in America. In America, we must protect the right to vote, not suppress that fundamental right. We honor the results of our elections, not subvert the will of the people. We must uphold the rule of the law and restore trust in our institutions of democracy. And we must give hate and extremism in any form no safe harbor.”

“Democracy must not be a partisan issue. It must be an American issue.”

With Republicans scoffing at him, he ended with a vision of the nation as one of possibility, hope, and goodness. “We must be the nation we have always been at our best. Optimistic. Hopeful. Forward-looking. A nation that embraces light over darkness, hope over fear, unity over division. Stability over chaos.”

“We must see each other not as enemies, but as fellow Americans. We are a good people.”

Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders gave the Republican rebuttal. Full of references to the culture wars and scathing of Biden, she reinforced the Republican stance during the speech. “The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left,” she said. “The choice is between normal or crazy.”

She is probably not the only one who is thinking along those lines after tonight’s events, but many are likely drawing a different conclusion than she intended.

HippieChick58 9 Feb 8
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I was surprised by Bidens forcefully pushing his agenda and pushing back against Rethuglican heckling, brilliantly. His rope a dope of them on S.S and Medicare was amazing..

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I did not watch or listen as it will be just another feeding frenzy for the other side. Still, I wonder how many would listen or watch if not for the circus atmosphere? Too many people continue to take the anger way viewing politics. It's the same old crap, it's easier to get angry and blame then to actually do something (like be informed) that will benefit the most. However, one item needs a comment: "or his call to strengthen the middle class." I find that laughable as we are actively engaged in doing just the opposite. We continue to import millions of poor people from poor countries who, basically have one objective, to increase their carbon footprint. We need to stop trying to be the world's social worker and help our struggling citizens first (I feel a of of anger comes from within, from people who see themselves as being 2nd class citizens, which many have become). Immigration is NOT about people but a policy under which all must live, immigrants and citizens alike. When that policy fails because of an overabundance of people, everyone, again citizens and immigrants will suffer.

The United States has always depended on migrant labor. We have always limited the number of immigrants, the current law allows people to present themselves at the border and ask for asylum. Most do not get to stay.
Refugees are a separate issue and again we are legally bound to accept a certain number.
It was the republicans that put the issue of migrants/immigrants in the center of their political circus. Migrants could move freely between us and our neighbors but once the republicans put a fear that they might not be able to get back in if they returned home they simply stayed.
This country does a better job of tracking cows than it does the migrant labor market and immigrants. Those hoping to stay or be able to work in the U.S. are the most least likely to commit crime. AND since Mexico is improving their economy fewer Mexicans are crossing the border. It is countries south of Mexico, ya know the ones the U.S. meddled with and fucked over.
The thing is we do need to control the global population but there actually is enough money it's just allocated poorly.

@silverotter11 Unfortunately things change and we need to change to meet the problems some of our past practices have brought upon us. The United States used to have two centers, Ellis and Angel Island to quarantine newcomers lest they bring in communicable diseases and to try and check out whether or not the were not bringing in problems from their own country. We used to have a quota of some 250,000 but after the Vietnam war that crept up to accommodate all the people that were displaced when the Vietnamese communists won (I visited the country for a month and the people are doing well despite communism). I also had to file for a visa in Germany and know of how things are supposed to work. Bottom line it is a very complicated situation and most have no idea of the impact of the harm our large immigration quota puts on the country, and indirectly, the rest of the world. One important step to learning some uncomfortable facts to stop blaming people and thinking this is purely a racist issue. It is not always so. Remember, I was married to an immigrant and she felt even stronger than I. I learned a lot from her.

@jackjr Ya think? The dems/progresives have attempted to make changes but the GQP and some dems appear to have little interest in finding a solution.

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I didn't watch plain and tall Sarah but expected just that. As for POTUS Joe seizing on the Con's exuberance and getting a concession for SS and Medicare I could only applaud. No substitute for experience and that's why so many want to get rid of it. Even Dems. Our entire nation is loony tunes.

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