The State of Biden’s Union

On Tuesday night, President Biden came to the House Chamber and delivered his first State of the Union speech. More than anything, the speech showed once again that he is living in an alternate reality. Since taking office last January, his out-of-touch, partisan agenda has made our country worse off. The American people are facing the highest spike in prices in 40 years brought on by the president's out-of-control spending. Our energy independence has been destroyed. Washington continues to take more command and control over the lives of the American people. To add insult to injury, businesses are struggling to find workers, our supply chain continues to be broken, gas prices have reached an eight-year high, over 2 million illegal immigrants have streamed across the border in the last year, and our country just surpassed $30 trillion in debt. Everywhere you look, America is a country in crisis.

Throughout his speech, Joe Biden touted half-truths to paint a rosy picture that stands in stark contrast to the reality working-class Americans are living. For instance, he touted job gains since he started in office. But he conveniently left out that people lost their jobs in the first place because blue state governors locked businesses down throughout the pandemic, forcing millions of small businesses to close at least temporarily. He also failed to acknowledge how our workforce is near record-low worker participation, record-high job openings, and record-high numbers of workers quitting their jobs. With 10.9 million job openings, there are 1.7 jobs available for every unemployed worker, and a record-high 49 percent of businesses said they had unfilled job openings in December.

Across the country employers can't meet demand. In rural hospitals, workforce shortages have caused life-threatening limits on access to health care – something Biden's vaccine mandates for health care workers will only exacerbate. Employers are doing everything in their power to attract workers. In December 48 percent of businesses reported that they raised workers' compensation and an additional 32 percent said they plan to raise compensation over the next three months. But unfortunately, President Biden and Washington Democrats have created a myth that work isn’t necessary because the government will pay you to stay home.

On inflation, the President doubled down. He is committed to spending his way out of this crisis, but you can't inflate your way out of inflation. The reality is that spending is exactly what is driving prices higher and robbing American families of the wages they have earned. And now, Washington Democrats want to rob Missourians even more through tax increases and another $5 trillion in spending.

This President claimed to want to reduce the deficit but whose own budget would have authorized $17 trillion in new debt. And rather than acknowledging his party's addiction to spending, he claimed that allowing American families to keep more of their hard-earned money was the problem. Here's the cold, hard truth for the President: the government has collected more revenue every year since we passed President Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And that is only projected to grow. Spending is the problem.

Why wouldn't the President acknowledge the problems spending is causing? Maybe it's because of all the waste, like the millions of dollars he signed into law that went towards building luxury apartments, golf courses, clubhouses, parking lots, checks to prisoners, or checks to Japanese citizens living in Japan. He didn’t want to come clean with the American people about how his Administration diverted billions from vaccines and COVID testing to house illegal immigrants at the border – another crisis of his own making.

One thing that is clear from Speaker Pelosi is that House Democrats have no interest in holding the President accountable for the Biden administration's lack of transparency. There are no oversight hearings of this agenda. I am committed to working with my House Republican colleagues to hold the President accountable for the economic pain and suffering they have endured for the last thirteen months. People don’t need rhetoric – they need a change of direction.