The State of the Union's 'colosseum feel' turned off independent voters: Lee Carter
Lee Carter, president at Maslansky+Partners, provides insight into Americans' reaction to President Biden's second State of the Union Address.
The moment when President Joe Biden invited Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova to stand up so "we can look at you," during his otherwise forgettable State of the Union speech on Tuesday night was a cringe-worthy reminder of just how old school this president is. The speech offered no exciting new policy initiatives – just a doubling down on the same policies that have failed us for generations.
Committing to yet another forever war, Biden assured Markarova that, "We are gonna stand with you [meaning Ukraine], as long as it takes." The tired tropes and old-fashioned ideas laced through the speech highlighted the disconnect between Biden’s world and the one the rest of America lives in.
When the boldest and newest ideas Biden can offer are plans to help fast food employees escape non-compete agreements and a proposal to eliminate resort fees at hotels, that signals a president who is out of touch with the concerns that keep Americans up at night.
JOE BIDEN'S 2023 STATE OF THE UNION IS HIS CAMPAIGN MANIFESTO AND HE'S JUST TAKEN A BIG GAMBLE
Does the president have a plan to curb inflation? Nobody seems to know, and he didn’t tell us. Perhaps he forgot, but it is one of our biggest problems.
What Biden simply forgot to talk about were kitchen table issues. He had no plan for keeping the social safety net solvent, providing a cheap and abundant energy supply, or addressing the growth of violent crime and drug trafficking.
Even as he decried the fictional lawmakers who want to "sunset" Social Security and Medicare, he offered no solutions for stabilizing those programs in the face of demographic and budgetary pressures that are projected to bankrupt them.
When Republicans rightly objected to his mischaracterization of their opposition to the irresponsible way these programs have been structured, he used a sleight of hand to claim they actually objected to making any changes to the programs. There is a big difference between wanting to sunset a program and wanting to repair it in ways that make it sustainable in the long-term. Biden offered no such solutions.
Even as other nations reap the consequences of their premature reliance on renewable energy, Biden entertained the fantasy that oil and gas could be abandoned in a decade as peels of laughter rang out. In all his talk of clean energy, he forgot to offer any ideas for producing cheap, reliable energy in a world where his policies are disincentivizing production – a fact he acknowledged.
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Despite his assurances that "I get it," it was clear that he really doesn’t. The laughter and nervous chuckles at his naïve plan to end the use of fossil fuels only reinforced the growing suspicion that this president really doesn’t understand. Oil and gas products don’t just power our cars, they are the backbone of global productivity without which a modern standard of living is impossible.
Biden also forgot to talk about the Border Patrol or to offer solutions to protect us from the criminal element mixed in among the tired masses crossing our borders every day. He had no solutions for addressing our Fentanyl crisis. He forgot to acknowledge our military and first responders, without whom we have no protection from the worst elements of society.
At one point, he suggested the only way to secure the border is through comprehensive immigration reform. No wonder we have a problem with fentanyl - he doesn’t understand how it gets here.
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On issue after issue, the president punted. He offered no solutions to avert a potential conflict with China over Taiwan, no solution to detect and prevent fraud after north of $100 billion in Covid relief funds were stolen. Even as he acknowledged rampant fraud, he called for more federal spending.
The speech was short on solutions, but long on new spending proposals. If more spending correlated to more solutions, the last four years should have done the trick. The speech will be quickly forgotten as the Biden Administration repeats the same mistakes that have failed us for generations.
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