US President Joe Biden State of Union Address Highlights

US President Joe Biden delivered his second State of the Union address in the annual address to Congress on Tuesday night. The speech will be Biden’s first State of the Union since Republicans won back control of the House, ending two years of unified Democratic government in Washington. 

Highlights

U.S. President made a spirited appeal to Republicans to raise the $34.1 trillion debt ceiling.

Biden touted U.S. job growth, his infrastructure program, drug price cuts for seniors and the rise in domestic manufacturing.

He also spoke about the war in Ukraine, oil dependency and America’s strategic competition with China.

Biden lauded California lunar new year shooting survivor Brandon Tsay and invoked the incident to urge Republicans to ban assault weapons

He pointed out that 25% of the outstanding U.S. national debt was added under former President Donald Trump’s tenure.

They blame Biden for rising interest rates and they worry about a possible recession. The NBC poll found that only 36% of U.S. adults approved of Biden’s handling of the economy.

In addition to economic woes, the debt ceiling deadline later this year looms over Washington. It will require Biden to negotiate with the newly elected Republican majority in the House, who have demanded deep spending cuts before they will agree to pass a debt ceiling hike.

We must finally hold social media companies accountable. The U.K.'s Online Safety Bill, which aims to regulate the internet, has been revised to remove a controversial but critical measure.

Biden called for a ban on targeted advertising to kids and “stricter limits on the personal data that companies collect on all of us.”

He also called for Congress to pass “bipartisan legislation to strengthen antitrust enforcement and prevent big online platforms from giving their own products an unfair advantage.”

Biden calls for raises for public school teachers and better access to pre-school

The Covid-19 pandemic was largely a footnote in Biden’s address, demonstrating the progress the U.S. has made against the virus and how the priorities of the administration and the public have changed. Biden acknowledged that the virus continues to evolve into new variants that pose a potential threat to public health, again calling on Congress again to fund the next generation of vaccines and treatments.

He stated that the United States would remain dependent on petroleum “for at least another decade.” The United States currently consumes approximately a fifth of all the petroleum used around the world every day. And Biden’s own U.S. government data projects that American petroleum consumption will increase nearly every year for the next three decades.

President Biden urged Congress to raise the debt ceiling to prevent 'economic disaster’.

Biden issued new stipulations requiring all construction materials for federal infrastructure projects to be made in the United States.

Musician Bono, the parents of Tyre Nichols, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova and House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul were some of the evening’s more notable guests.

Click Here For The Complete Transcript Of President Joe Biden – State of the Union Address 

Happening Now: President Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress. https://t.co/mzCN4SYpda

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 8, 2023

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