Views From the Nation’s Press

The Whittier Daily News on how Biden offered his expensive vision to nation:

The State of the Union address is an annual event that allows the president to speak unfiltered and at length to the American people about his record and his goals.

Tuesday’s address by President Biden also offered the public a preview of his plans for 2024.

Twelve times the president declared that he wanted to “finish the job.”

Woven into the speech was a look at what a potential second term would look like. The president called for passing the PRO Act, a union-sponsored bill that seeks to reduce work opportunities for independent contractors, similar to California’s career-destroying AB 5 law, because independent contractors cannot be unionized under federal labor law.

On China policy, Biden declared that “we” would be “investing” in industries “that China’s government is intent on dominating.” Is he promising to beat a totalitarian nation at the game of centralized industrial policy? That won’t end well for U.S. taxpayers, and opens the door to more crony capitalism.

In response to recent mass shootings, Biden affirmed his narrow interest in banning socalled assault weapons “once and for all.” Never mind that rifles of all kinds were used in just 3% of homicide cases in 2020 and that handguns remain the type of weapon most commonly used in mass shootings. As the nonpartisan Rand Corp. has reported, “Evidence for the effect of assault weapon bans on mass shootings is inconclusive.”

Regarding the economic problem that Americans cite most often as a concern, Biden took no responsibility. “Inflation has been a global problem because of the pandemic that disrupted supply chains and Putin’s war that disrupted energy and food supplies,” he said. That ignores the effect of massive, unfunded spending bills, which economists acknowledge as a cause of inflation even if the president doesn’t.