Biden tries to find some common ground
WASHINGTON — The State of the Union address tends to have a ritual rhythm. Grand entrance. Applause. Platitudes. Policies. Appeals for Unity, real or imagined.
President Joe Biden checked those boxes, and a few more, during his speech to a joint session on Congress on Tuesday. In part, he seemed to be laying the foundation to run for a second term. “We’ve been sent here to finish the job,” he said.
Biden made calls for unity and tried to emphasize conciliation over conflict, easier to do in this rarefied setting, seemingly impossible to sustain in such divided times.
Takeaways from the president’s State of the Union address:
Conciliation, conflict
Biden’s speech almost defiantly ignored the bitter divisions between Republicans and Democrats and his own low standing with the public.
He returned repeatedly to common ground, making the case that both parties can back U.S. factories, new businesses being formed and the funding of 20,000 infrastructure projects. When Biden hit each of these themes, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy politely clapped, evening standing to applaud at one point.
It’s a sign that Democrats and Republicans can at least agree to a shared set of goals, even if they have very different views of how to get there.
But then came a Biden comment that generated boos and hoots from Republicans: Biden said some in the GOP were bent on cutting Social Security and Medicare.
That sparked a raucous back and forth that seemed more in line with the reality of the actual relationship between the parties.
Biden used the speech to highlight his focus on the common man, calling out billionaires who pay lower tax rates than the middle class and airlines that treat their passengers like “suckers.”
It amounted to a dare to Republican lawmakers who increasingly claim to represent blue-collar workers.
“No billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a school teacher or a firefighter,” Biden said in one of the bigger applause lines of his speech.
Tax plan
The president brought back an idea from last year to put a minimum tax on billionaires so they don’t pay a lower rate than many middle-class households. Biden had pitched a 20 percent tax on the income and unrealized financial gains of households worth $100 million or more. The administration estimated it would generate $360 billion over 10 years. That would in theory help fund some priorities and possibly reduce the deficit.
But Biden’s tax plan might be more about scoring political points, as he couldn’t get it past West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin in the Senate last year.
Among Biden’s guests were the parents of Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old black man whose beating death at the hands Memphis, Tennessee, police has reignited a national debate on policing.
Efforts to reduce police excesses have been sharply restricted by resistance in Congress, and there’s little prospect of federal action.
Still, Biden expressed awe at the grace of Nichols’ mother, Row-Vaughn Wells, who following his death has talked of her son’s “beautiful soul” and hopeful certainty that “something good will come from this.”
Biden, 80, also acknowledged in plain terms that as a white man he’s enjoyed a privilege that Nichols’ parents — and Black parents writ large — do not.
“Imagine having to worry whether your son or daughter will come home from walking down the street or playing in the park or just driving their car,” he said. “I’ve never had to have the talk with my children — Beau, Hunter and Ashley — that so many Black and brown families have had with their children.”