Columns

Blaine’s Bulletin: State Of The Union

Three years ago, at President Biden’s inauguration, he told the country his goal was “Bringing America together, uniting our people, and uniting our nation”. Unfortunately, like many of the President’s claims last night, the facts don’t align with the words. Instead of working with Congress and state governors to unite around common goals of countering our adversaries like China, securing our border, cutting unnecessary red tape, and tackling runaway government spending and inflation, the president has used these problems (most of his own making) as an opportunity to pit Americans against one another and demonize anyone who disagrees with him. 

If a person who had never been to the U.S. heard the President’s speech last night, they would assume things are great, and anything less than perfect certainly isn’t due to his policies. Instead of recognizing the poor fiscal policy that has created historically painful inflation, the President blames his failures on American manufacturers and companies who are struggling to survive “Bidenomics.” He vilifies small businesses for raising their prices despite costs continually going up. Over the last three years, Bidenomics have raised the cost of living by $11,400 annually, making it increasingly difficult for families to make ends meet and just as hard for small businesses to flourish.

The border crisis continues to escalate, with 8.7 million illegal crossings. Day after day, we see violent crimes across the country committed by people this Administration allowed and incentivized to enter the country illegally. What’s worse is, many of them had previously been arrested for other crimes. Instead of deporting criminals who are here illegally, the Justice Department puts them back on the streets, in our communities. Last night, instead of announcing significant policy changes to prioritize the safety of Americans, the President once again blamed his failures on someone else – Congress. The question I hope you’ll ask yourself when you hear these claims is: “If the President had the authority to eliminate the policies like Remain in Mexico that significantly improved our border security during the Trump administration, why does he claim not to have the authority to reinstate them?” The answer is he does have the authority. He just doesn’t want to do it.

The President did touch on the countless international crises taking place around the world and the need for the U.S. to lead. He did not acknowledge that much of this chaos is the result of nefarious actors taking advantage of a weakened U.S. After he surrendered Afghanistan to the Taliban and sacrificed 13 American servicemembers and thousands of Afghanis who supported our troops, maniacs like Vladimir Putin, terrorists like Hamas, and their supporters, Iran and China, understood that not only is the President weak, but his Administration is also filled with sympathizers. Less than a week after Vice President Kamala Harris publicly supported the ceasefire Hamas needs to regain its footing and collect more support from Iran, the President skipped the opportunity to confirm to the world that United States does not tolerate terrorism and will always support our ally, Israel.

It was a long speech – all State of the Unions are – so we can’t cover the entire thing. It would take dozens of pages to do so; I doubt you’d want to read all of that. I’ll wrap it up with this. We are always going to disagree on some policy proposals no matter who is in office or their political party, but we can and should agree on many things too. I didn’t expect the President to give a speech filled with conservative ideas and Republican policies. But in the speech designed for the President to speak directly to the American people and give a true assessment of the state of the Nation, we deserved better than a campaign speech filled with revisionist history and empty promises he and his speechwriter know will never come to fruition.

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