On March 1, President Joe Biden will speak before a joint session of Congress and deliver his first official State of the Union address. If he chose to be honest about the true state of national affairs, he would acknowledge the plethora of crises of his own making and outline solutions to address them.
First, President Biden needs to address the worsening economic crisis in our country. For nearly a year, Americans have felt the dramatic rise of prices on almost everything as well as empty shelves in stores due to supply chain issues and labor shortages caused by Democrats’ damaging policies. It was also recently reported that the Consumer Price Index (CPI), an important economic indicator, in January reached the highest rate in 40 years. This is troubling news for hardworking Americans, who are already feeling the impact of inflation harshly on their pocketbooks, effectively diminishing their wages.
Moreover, earlier this month, gas prices reached an astounding seven-year high. The sharp spike in gas prices and the inflated cost to heat your home is directly attributed to President Biden's anti-American energy policies. In fact, on his first day in office, he canceled construction of a vital American pipeline, which eliminated thousands of American jobs and forced our country to dangerously rely on adversarial producers overseas. As a result, Americans are not only paying significantly more at the pump, but our country's energy independence has taken a serious hit and poses an elevated risk to our national security as well.
President Biden should put forth a plan in his address that would make it easier for American companies to increase domestic oil and gas production and hire more American workers. Then he would not have to beg OPEC and adversarial Russia to increase oil output or direct the U.S. Department of Energy to release oil held for emergency use in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve as he did a few months ago.
Next, a historic number of migrants illegally crossed our southern border in 2021. Unfortunately, officials from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) do not expect this mass flow to slow down anytime soon. This problem can only be attributed to President Biden and Democrats' open border policies, which have attracted bad actors from all over the world to illegally enter by way of the southern border.
Biden’s open border has also led to the trafficking of the dangerous and deadly drug fentanyl. A disturbing report from border patrol agents shows that the seizure of fentanyl at the border has increased by 1,066 percent. Moreover, based on a recent analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, fentanyl has become the predominant killer for Americans ages 18 to 45. This mounting crisis also forced the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to issue its first public safety alert in six years, warning the public about fake pills laced with lethal doses of fentanyl. One hundred times more potent than morphine, this synthetic opioid is a danger to the United States in any amount.
Instead of enacting policies to discourage migrants from making the dangerous trek to our country, President Biden and his administration have even quietly flown thousands of illegal migrants to cities across America in the middle of the night. The American people deserve an explanation. Instead of taking action to end the border crisis and ease the burden on our nation’s hardworking border agents, President Biden is not enforcing consequences on those who break the law, but instead is gifting them with a free plane ticket.
Finally, because of President Biden’s completely botched withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan that resulted in the tragic deaths of 13 of our service members, our country appears weak and unresponsive on the international stage. Indeed, our adversaries around the globe continue to test the limits and push the boundaries. For example, adversaries like China and Russia continue to test and provoke neighboring countries. This is happening in areas of eastern Europe, the Middle East, Afghanistan and the Taiwan Strait. Even more concerning, Russia has amassed thousands of troops on the Ukrainian border, signaling a possible invasion of the country.
The American people deserve a realistic and honest State of the Union address delivered by President Biden. He should not only acknowledge the crises at hand and offer solutions to reverse them, but he should apologize to the American people for his disastrous results in just a year’s time. Unfortunately, he will probably use this time instead to try to once again push forward his Build Back Better bill that would only exacerbate the crises facing Americans. The president and Democrats must change course and focus on the true needs of our country, not a progressive wish list package that has already failed before.