Biden’s annual speech is scheduled for Feb 7
2023.01.13 14:27
Biden’s annual speech is scheduled for Feb 7
By Ray Johnson
Budrigannews.com – On Friday, President Joe Biden accepted Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s invitation to deliver the annual State of the Union address to Congress on February 7.
As is customary, the Democratic president’s second State of the Union address will be delivered in the House of Representatives, where Republicans gained majority control following the midterm elections in November.
Biden will have the opportunity to outline his legislative objectives during the middle of his four-year term at the annual address, possibly even hinting at broader themes for his anticipated run for reelection in 2024. He gets a national audience for the speech, which gives him a chance to gain support from Democrats, some of whom are worried about his age and other issues.
In November, Biden turned 80, and if he were to be re-elected, he would be 82 at the start of his second term.
The announcement came one day after the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Biden will likely demand bipartisan legislation in his speech, but the new political landscape will make it harder for him to do so. Still, issues like fighting the opioid crisis might get a lot of support.
Additionally, Biden is likely to extol the accomplishments of his administration over the past year, such as the passage of an infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes provisions on climate change and prescription drugs.
After four years of Democratic control of the chamber, Biden, a longtime senator and former vice president, will face a fractious group of Republican lawmakers eager to put their conservative stamp on U.S. policy.
Republicans had a historically difficult time electing a speaker last week due to their razor-thin majority and intraparty divisions. It is anticipated that they will continue to struggle to unite their more moderate and far-right members on legislation.
Nevertheless, Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s leadership in the House is expected to initiate a significant budget reduction effort with a focus on lowering the costs of Social Security and Medicare’s retirement and healthcare programs.
Both Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is also a Democrat, have said they will stop such legislation if it gets through the House, as well as measures to make it harder to have an abortion anywhere in the country.
Legislation to raise the federal government’s borrowing authority, or debt limit, is another hot-button issue that Congress is likely to fight over in 2023. This legislation is expected to be needed in the middle of the year. The Democrats also hope that new gun control measures will build on a modest bipartisan law that was passed last year. After decades of unsuccessful attempts, both parties also intend to address immigration.
Additionally, conservative Republicans in the House are presenting legislation that would reverse increased funding for the Internal Revenue Service in order to allow it to hire additional agents to target wealthy tax cheats.
Biden just returned from a trip to the Southwestern border, where Republicans are eager to legislate more stringent security measures due to the influx of immigrants. Some Democrats in Congress have said that they would be willing to give some minors brought illegally into the United States a path to citizenship in exchange for new border controls.
More Republicans trying to fulfill election promises of 2022
