3 Big Falsehoods in President Biden’s State of the Union Address
It’s not exactly earth-shattering news when a politician gives a speech that contains a few lies, fabrications, or falsehoods. That said, the fibs President Biden told in his State of the Union address on Tuesday are worth calling out. An exhaustive list would take a much more patient author than I, but here are three big falsehoods from Biden’s first State of the Union speech.
1. Fake News About How Great His Stimulus Was
President Biden predictably touted the supposed results of his multi-trillion-dollar stimulus legislation, the so-called “American Rescue Plan.” “One of the first things I did as President was fight to pass the American Rescue Plan,” he said. “Because people were hurting. We needed to act, and we did. Few pieces of legislation have done more in a critical moment in our history to lift us out of crisis. It fueled our efforts to vaccinate the nation and combat COVID-19. It delivered immediate economic relief for tens of millions of Americans.” “American Rescue Plan helped working people—and left no one behind,” Biden continued. “And it worked. It created jobs. Lots of jobs.” This is false on several fronts. For one thing, his plan did very little to promote vaccination or directly combat COVID-19. Even the left-leaning PolitiFact acknowledged that just 1% of its spending went to vaccines and less than 10% of the massive spending bill was directly related to COVID-19. Most of it was wasteful, fraud-rife welfare spending and big new government programs. And Biden’s stimulus did not “work” or “create lots of jobs.” On the contrary, it fell short of the job promises the White House outlined if they spent nothing on stimulus at all! As I previously explained for BASEDPolitics: “The economy only created 6.1 million jobs in 2021… even less than was projected without the stimulus spending. So, not only did the 4 million jobs promised by President Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and his many progressive allies fail to materialize. The Democrats spent $1.9 trillion in taxpayer money—roughly $13,250 per federal taxpayer—and ended up with even fewer jobs overall than was expected if we spent nothing.”
2. Repeated False Claims About Not Raising Anyone’s Taxes
During the State of the Union address, President Biden repeated his false claims that his agenda only involves increasing taxes on the rich. “Under my plan, nobody earning less than $400,000 a year will pay an additional penny in new taxes,” he said. “Nobody.” This is completely false. Since taking office, Biden has put forward multiple tax proposals that would increase taxes on Americans earning less than $400,000. These include a new tax on nicotine products which would hurt poorer Americans hardest, increased corporate taxes which workers would bear through lower wages, and more. Even liberal-leaning think tanks and analysts have acknowledged that Biden’s pledge simply isn’t true—and parroting it yet again at the State of the Union doesn’t change this.
3. Claiming His Plans Will REDUCE the Deficit
Biden wants to have his cake and eat it too. The president is proposing massive new spending plans with fuzzy budget math and then claiming it’ll somehow shrink the annual federal budget deficit. “My plan will not only lower costs to give families a fair shot, it will lower the deficit,” he said Tuesday night. Yeah… no. An analysis by the Wharton School of Business found that Biden’s “Build Back Better” spending agenda would increase the national debt by 2% over the long run under rosy conditions, and by 25% under more realistic conditions.
The Takeaway
President Biden and his aides aren’t stupid. They know all the facts I’ve just outlined above. The White House simply believes that the American people are either too dumb or inattentive to realize that what they’re claiming doesn’t add up. We’re not.
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