The State of the Union speech was more like a campaign appearance

February 14, 2023

President Joe Biden continues to set records as President of the United States of America. His State of the Union (SOTU) message of February 7th set a record. It was the least-watched SOTU since viewership has been tracked, beginning in 1993, with only 27.3 million viewers. 

This year’s SOTU was 30 percent lower than last year’s 38.1 million. The only one with lower viewership was his unofficial one in 2021, which was termed an address to a joint session of Congress, and drew only 26.9 million.

Contrast those numbers with Bill Clinton’s 1993 unofficial SOTU of 66 million viewers, and George W. Bush’s 2003 address of 62 million viewers.

This year’s SOTU was the second longest one since 1964 at 1 hour, 12 minutes, and 44 seconds. That’s about 16 minutes shorter than Bill Clinton’s SOTU of 2000.

Perhaps this disappointing showing reflects the public’s dissatisfaction with the Biden presidency, of which only 41 percent of Americans approve, according to the latest Reuters poll. And currently, only 37 percent of Democrats want him to run for reelection in 2024. Worse, only about 25 percent of Americans think the country is heading in the right direction.

Perhaps the fact that Vice President Kamala Harris earned an even lower approval rating helps Biden feel a little bit better about his numbers.

In the interest of what the actual State of the Union is, here are some pertinent items, in no particular order:
* The inflation rate of 1.4 percent when Biden took office is now 7.0 percent.
* Thirty-year mortgages have risen from 2.7 percent to 6.5 percent.
* Prices of goods have risen, too. Eggs are now $7 a dozen, steak is about $15 a pound, and plywood is $95 per sheet.
* Biden’s war on fossil fuels ended America’s recently realized energy independence, and has killed nearly 70,000 jobs since 2021.
* Gasoline prices rose from $2.39 a gallon to $5 a gallon in some states, and while prices have dropped, gas still costs on average $3.42 a gallon.
* Natural gas prices have tripled over the last year.
* In his two years as President, more than 5 million people have illegally entered the country over the southern border.
* The disastrous pullout from Afghanistan left 13 American military personnel dead, stranded dozens of friendly Afghanis and left an estimated $7 billion in American military equipment behind for the Taliban.
* During his tenure, we have given away so many of our weapons from our arsenal to Ukraine without replacing them, and lowered the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a dangerous level to try and lower gas prices.

The SOTU was marked by some unusual and objectionable things. Perhaps the most frequently mentioned is the “raucous” and “rude” behavior of Republicans reacting to Biden’s comments.

Congress members normally are quite polite and reserved in reaction to a speaker who speaks with dignity. That was not the case this year. Both the President and the Republican members of Congress strayed beyond the normal, acceptable and expected behavior.

While not excusing this aberrant behavior, we must recognize that it was in reaction to “misstatements” and “errors” in the President’s remarks.

For example, Biden claimed to have created 12 million new jobs, but neglected to say that most of them were people going back to work after the Covid pandemic killed 22 million jobs. 

He also didn’t mention the millions of Americans who lost jobs and aren’t looking for another job, due to over-generous and unnecessary government payments. These people who dropped out of the workforce make the unemployment figures look much better than if they were still in the workforce looking for a job.

He falsely accused a group of Republicans of wanting to sunset Social Security and Medicare, which drew the loudest rebuke from them.

He also asserted his confused understanding of taxes paid by people and businesses. Criticizing businesses and wealthier Americans for not paying “their fair share” appeals to many people. But such a tactic ignores so much of the sad reality of our broken tax system, our too-big government, and the 42 percent of total taxes that the wealthy actually pay.

And, he carefully avoided talking in detail about China spying on us. Beginning before the SOTU and ending after it was the situation where the administration allowed a Chinese spy balloon to float across the nation for days before taking it down. 

News of this balloon first became public when airline passengers saw something odd, and a civilian on the ground saw it, had a co-worker photograph it, sent the photos to the government, and published the photos. The Department of Defense then announced it had been tracking the balloon for a few days.

Since that fiasco at least four other unidentified objects have been spotted in our airspace and taken down. These objects have apparently been visiting us for some number of years without the Defense Department’s knowledge. 

Hopefully, Biden will do something to get the Defense Department to focus all of its attention on its critical mission of protecting the country.

The State of the Union is not good. And it is getting worse.