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Biden Lays Out Vision for Future, Battle to Save Democracy and Soul of Nation & Draws Contrasts to ‘My Predecessor” in Fiery State of the Union Address

Here is edited and highlighted transcript of President Biden’s fiery State of the Union Address, as delivered, ad libs and all, in which he trolled and baited Republicans, laid out the stakes of the 2024 election, and contrasted his record and his vision of the future with “my predecessor.” –Karen Rubin, [email protected]

President Biden delivers a fiery State of the Union Address in which he trolled and baited Republicans, laid out the stakes, and contrasted his vision of the future with “my predecessor.” © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com via c-span

9:26 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT:  (The President presents his prepared remarks to Speaker Johnson.)  Your bedtime reading. 

Tony!  (Applause.)  Thank you.  (Applause.)  Looking for Jill.  (Applause.)

Good evening.  (Applause.)  Good evening.  If I were smart, I’d go home now.  (Laughter and applause.)

Mr. Speaker, Madam Vice President, members of Congress, my fellow Americans.

In January 1941, Franklin Roosevelt came to this chamber to speak to the nation.  And he said, “I address you at a moment unprecedented in the history of the Union”.  Hitler was on the march.  War was raging in Europe.

President Roosevelt’s purpose was to wake up Congress and alert the American people that this was no ordinary time.  Freedom and democracy were under assault in the world.

Tonight, I come to the same chamber to address the nation.  Now it’s we who face an unprecedented moment in the history of the Union. 
 
And, yes, my purpose tonight is to wake up the Congress and alert the American people that this is no ordinary moment either.  Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today.
 
What makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack at — both at home and overseas at the very same time. 
 
Overseas, Putin of Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond.
 
If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you: He will not.  (Applause.) 

But Ukraine — Ukraine can stop Putin.  (Applause.)  Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons that it needs to defend itself.  (Applause.) 

That is all — that is all Ukraine is asking.  They’re not asking for American soldiers.  In fact, there are no American soldiers at war in Ukraine, and I’m determined to keep it that way.  (Applause.) 

But now assistance to Ukraine is being blocked by those who want to walk away from our world leadership.

It wasn’t long ago when a Republican president named Ronald Reagan thundered, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”  (Applause.) 

Now — now my predecessor, a former Republican president, tells Putin, quote, “Do whatever the hell you want.” 
 

AUDIENCE:  Booo —

THE PRESIDENT:  That’s a quote.

A former president actually said that — bowing down to a Russian leader.  I think it’s outrageous, it’s dangerous, and it’s unacceptable.  (Applause.) 

America is a founding member of NATO, the military alliance of democratic nations created after World War Two prevent — to prevent war and keep the peace.

And today, we’ve made NATO stronger than ever.  We welcomed Finland to the Alliance last year.  (Applause.)  And just this morning, Sweden officially joined, and their minister is here tonight.  Stand up.  (Applause.)  Welcome.  Welcome, welcome, welcome.  (Applause.)  And they know how to fight.

Mr. Prime Minister, welcome to NATO, the strongest military alliance the world has ever seen.

I say this to Congress: We have to stand up to Putin.  (Applause.)  Send me a bipartisan national security bill.  History is literally watching.  History is watching.

If the United States walks away, it will put Ukraine at risk.  Europe is at risk.  The free world will be at risk, emboldening others to do what they wish to do us harm.

My message to President Putin, who I’ve known for a long time, is simple: We will not walk away.  (Applause.)  We will not bow down.  (Applause.)  I will not bow down.  (Applause.) 
 
In a literal sense, history is watching.  History is watching — just like history watched three years ago on January 6th — (applause) — when insurrectionists stormed this very Capitol and placed a dagger to the throat of American democracy.

Many of you were here on that darkest of days.  We all saw with our own eyes the insurrectionists were not patriots.  They had come to stop the peaceful transfer of power, to overturn the will of the people.

January 6th lies about the 2020 election and the plots to steal the election posed a great — gravest threat to U.S. democracy since the Civil War. 
 
But they failed.  (Applause.)  America stood — (applause) — America stood strong and democracy prevailed.  We must be honest: The threat to democracy must be defended [defeated].

My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth about January 6th.  I will not do that.
 
This is a moment to speak the truth and to bury the lies.  Here’s the simple truth: You can’t love your country only when you win. 
(Applause.)

As I’ve done ever since being elected to office, I ask all of you, without regard to party, to join together and defend democracy.  Remember your oath of office to defend against
all threats foreign and domestic.
  (Applause.) 

Respect — respect free and fair elections, restore trust in our institutions, and make clear political violence has absolutely no place — no place in America.  Zero place.  (Applause.)

Again, it’s not — it’s not hyperbole to suggest history is watching.  They’re watching.  Your children and grandchildren will read about this day and what we do. 

History is watching another assault on freedom.  Joining us tolight [tonight] is Latorya Beasley, a social worker from Birmingham, Alabama. 

Fourteen months ago — fourteen months ago, she and her husband welcomed a baby girl thanks to the miracle of IVF.  (Applause.)  She scheduled treatments to have that second child, but the Alabama Supreme Court shut down IVF treatments across the state, unleashed by a Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.  She was told her dream would have to wait.

What her family had gone through should never have happened.  Unless Congress acts, it could happen again. 

So, tonight, let’s stand up for families like hers.  To my friends across the aisle — (applause) — don’t keep this waiting any longer.  Guarantee the right to IVF.  (Applause.)  Guarantee it nationwide.

Like most Americans, I believe Roe v. Wade got it right.

I thank Vice President Harris for being an incredible leader defending reproductive freedom and so much more.  (Applause.)  Thank you.

My predecessor came to office determined to see Roe v. Wade overturned.  He’s the reason it was overturned, and he brags about it.  Look at the chaos that has resulted.

Joining us tonight is Kate Cox, a wife and mother from Dallas.  She’d become pregnant again and had a fetus with a fatal condition.  Her doctor told Kate that her own life and her ability to have future in the fil- — children in the future were at risk if she didn’t act.  Because Texas law banned her ability to act, Kate and her husband had to leave the state to get what she needed.

What her family had gone through should have never happened as well.  But it’s happening to too many others.

There are state laws banning the freedom to choose, criminalizing doctors, forcing survivors of rape and incest to leave their states to get the treatment they need.
 
Many of you in this chamber and my predecessor are promising to pass a national ban on reproductive freedom.

AUDIENCE:  Booo —

THE PRESIDENT:  My God, what freedom else would you take away?

Look, its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court majority wrote the following — and with all due respect, Justices — “Women are not without electoral — electoral power” — excuse me — “electoral or political power.”
 
You’re about to realize just how much you were right about that.  (Applause.)
 
Clearly — (applause) — clearly, those bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade have no clue about the power of women.
 
But they found out.  When reproductive freedom was on the ballot, we won in 2022 and 2023.  And we’ll win again in 2024.  (Applause.)

If you — if you, the American people, send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again.  (Applause.)
 
Folks, America cannot go back.
 
I am here to- — tonight to show what I believe is the way forward, because I know how far we’ve come. 
 
Four years ago next week, before I came to office, the country was hit by the worst pandemic and the worst economic crisis in a century. 
 
Remember the fear, record losses? 
 
Remember the spikes in crime and the murder rate?  A raging virus that took more than 1 million American lives of loved ones, millions left behind. 
 
A mental health crisis of isolation and loneliness. 
 
A president, my predecessor, failed in the most basic presidential duty that he owes to American people: the duty to care. 
 
AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Lies!

THE PRESIDENT:  I think that’s unforgivable.

I came to office determined to get us through one of the toughest periods in the nation’s history.  We have.

It doesn’t make new, but in a — news — in a thousand cities and towns, the American people are writing the greatest comeback story never told.  (Applause.) 

So, let’s tell the story here — tell it here and now.

America’s comeback is building a future of American possibilities; building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down; investing in all of America, in all Americans to make every- — sure everyone has a fair shot and we leave no one — no one behind.

The pandemic no longer controls our lives.  The vaccine that saved us from COVID is — are now being used to beat cancer.

Turning setback into comeback.  That’s what America does.  That’s what America does.  (Applause.)

Folks, I inherited an economy that was on the brink.  Now, our economy is literally the envy of the world. 
 
Fifteen million new jobs in just three years.  A record.
  A record.  (Applause.)

Unemployment at 50-year lows.  (Applause.)

A record 16 million Americans are starting small businesses, and each one is a literal act of hope, with historic job growth and small-business growth for Black and Hispanics and Asian Americans.Eight hundred thousand new manufacturing jobs in America and counting.  (Applause.)

Where is it written we can’t be the manufacturing capital of the world?  We are and we will.  (Applause.)

More people have health insurance today — more people have health insurance today than ever before.

The racial wealth gap is the smallest it’s been in 20 years.

Wages keep going up.  Inflation keeps coming down.  Inflation has dropped from 9 percent to 3 percent — the lowest in the world and tending [trending] lower.  (Applause.)

The landing is and will be soft.  And now, instead of aporting — importing foreign products and exporting American jobs, we’re exporting American products and creating American jobs — (applause) — right here in America, where they belong. 

And it takes time, but the American people are beginning to feel it.  Consumer studies show consumer confidence is soaring.  

“Buy America” has been the law of the land since the 1930s.  Past administrations, including my predecessor — including some Democrats, as well, in the past — failed to buy American.  Not anymore. 

On my watch, federal projects that you fund — like helping build American roads, bridges, and highways — will be made with American products and built by American workers — (applause) — creating good-paying American jobs.  (Applause.) 

And thanks to our CHIPS and Science Act — (applause) — the United States is investing more inresearch and development than ever before.  During the pandemic, a shortage of semiconductors, chips that drove up the price of everything from cell phones to automobiles — and, by the way, we invented those chips right here in America.

Well, instead of having to import them, instead of — private companies are now investing billions of dollars to build new chip factories here in America — (applause) — creating tens of thousands of jobs, many of those jobs paying $100,000 a year and don’t require a college degree.  (Applause.)

In fact, my policies have attracted$650 billion in private-sector investment in clean energy, advanced manufacturing, creating tens of thousands of jobs here in America.  (Applause.)

And thanks — and thanks to our Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, 46,000 new projects have been announced all across your communities. 

And, by the way, I noticed some of you who’ve strongly voted against it are there cheering on that money coming in.  (Laughter and applause.)  And I like it.  I’m with you.  I’m with you.

And if any of you don’t want that money in your district, just let me know.  (Laughter.)

Modernizing our roads and bridges, ports and airports, public transit systems.  Removing poi- — poisonous lead pipes so every child can drink clean water without risk of brain damage.  (Applause.) 

Providing affordable — affordable high-speed Internet for every American, no matter where you live — urban, suburban, or rural communities in red states and blue states. 

Record investments in Tribal communities. 
 
Because of my investment in family farms — (applause) — because I invested in family farms — led by my Secretary of Agriculture, who knows more about this anybody I know — we’re better able to stay in the family for the — those farms so their — and their children and grandchildren won’t have to leave — leave home to make a living.  It’s transformative. 

The great comeback story is Belvidere, Illinois.  Home to an auto plant for nearly 60 years.  Before I came to office, the plant was on its way to shutting down.  Thousands of workers feared for their livelihoods.  Hope was fading. 

Then, I was elected to office, and we raised Belvidere repeatedly with auto companies, knowing unions would make all the difference.  The UAW worked like hell to keep the plant open and get these jobs back.  And together, we succeeded. 

Instead of auto factories shutting down, auto factories are reopening and a new state-of-the-art battery factory is being built to power those cars there at the same.  (Applause.)   

To the folks — to the folks of Belvidere, I’d say: Instead of your town being left behind, your community is moving forward again.  Because instead of watching auto ja- — jobs of the future go overseas, 4,000 union jobs with higher wages are building a future in Belvidere right here in America.  (Applause.)

Here tonight is UAW President Shawn Fain, a great friend and a great labor leader.  Shawn, where are you?  (Applause.)  Stand up. 

And — and Dawn — and Dawn Simms, a third-generation worker — UAW worker at Belvidere. 

Shawn, I was proud to be the first President to stand in the picket line.  And today, Dawn has a good job in her hometown, providing stability for her family and pride and dignity as well. 

Showing once again Wall Street didn’t build America.  They’re not bad guys.  They didn’t build it, though.  The middle class built the country, and unions built the middle class.  (Applause.)

I say to the American people: When America gets knocked down, we get back up.  (Applause.)  We keep going.  That’s America.  (Applause.)  That’s you, the American people. 

It’s because of you America is coming back.  It’s because of you our future is brighter.  It’s because of you that tonight we can proudly say the state of our Union is strong and getting stronger.  (Applause.)

AUDIENCE:  Four more years!  Four more years!  Four more years!

THE PRESIDENT:  Tonight — tonight, I want to talk about the future of possibilities that we can build together — a future where the days of trickle-down economics are over and the wealthy and the biggest corporations no longer get the — all the tax breaks. 

And, by the way, I understand corporations.  I come from a state that has more corporations invested than every one of your states in the state — the United States combined.  And I represented it for 36 years.  I’m not anti-corporation.

But I grew up in a home where trickle-down economics didn’t put much on my dad’s kitchen table.  That’s why I’m determined to turn things around so the middle class does well. When they do well, the poor have a way up and the wealthy still do very well.  We all do well. 

And there’s more to do to make sure you’re feeling the benefits of all we’re doing. 

Americans pay more for prescription drugs than anywhere in the world.  It’s wrong, and I’m ending it.  (Applause.)
 
With a law that I proposed and signed — and not one of your Republican buddies work- — voted for it — we finally beat Big Pharma. 
 
Instead of paying $400 a month or thereabouts for insulin with diabetes — and it only costs 10 bucks to make — they only get paid $35 a month now and still make a healthy profit.  (Applause.)

And I want to — and what to do next, I want to cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for every American who needs it — everyone.  (Applause.) 

For years, people have talked about it.  But finally, we got it done and gave Medicare the power to negotiate lower prices on prescription drugs, just like the VA is able to do for veterans.  (Applause.)

That’s not just saving seniors money.  It’s saving taxpayers money.  We cut the federal deficit by $160 billion — (applause) — because Medicare will no longer have to pay those exorbitant prices to Big Pharma. 

This year, Medicare is negotiating lower prices for some of the costliest drugs on the market that treat everything from heart disease to arthritis.  It’s now time to go further and give Medicare the power to negotiate lower prices for 500 different drugs over the next decade.  (Applause.) 

They’re making a lot of money, guys.  And they’ll still be extremely profitable.  It will not only save lives; it will save taxpayers another $200 billion.  (Applause.)

Starting next year, the same law caps total prescription drug costs for seniors on Medicare at $200 — at $2,000 a year, even for expensive cancer drugs that cost $10-, $12-, $15,000.  Now I want to cap prescription drug costs at $2,000 a year for everyone.  (Applause.)

Folks, I’m going to get in trouble for saying that, but any of you want to get in Air Force One with me and fly to Toronto, Berlin, Moscow — I mean, excuse me.  (Laughter.)  Well, even Moscow, probably.  (Laughter.)  And bring your prescription with you, and I promise you, I’ll get it for you for 40 percent the cost you’re paying now.  Same company, same drug, same place.

Folks, the Affordable Care Act — the old “Obamacare” — (applause) — is still a very big deal.  (Laughter and applause.) 

Over 100 million of you can no longer be denied health insurance because of a preexisting condition.  But my predecessor and many in this chamber want to take the — that prescription drug away by repealing Affordable Care Act.

AUDIENCE:  Booo —  

THE PRESIDENT:  I’m not going to let that happen.  (Applause.)  We stopped you 50 times before, and we’ll stop you again.  (Applause.) 

In fact, I’m not only protecting it, I’m expanding it.  The — we enacted tax credits of $800 per person per year [to] reduce healthcare costs for millions of working families. That tax credit expires next year.  I want to make that savings permanent.  (Applause.)

To state the obvious: Women are more than half of our population, but research on women’s health has always been underfunded. 

That’s why we’re launching the first-ever White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research, led by Jill — (applause) — doing an incredible job as First Lady — (applause) — to pa- — to pass my plan for $12 billion to transform women’s health research and benefit millions of lives all across America.

I know the cost of housing is so important to you.  Inflation keeps coming down.  Mortgage rates will come down as well, and the Fed acknowledges that. 

But I’m not waiting.  I want to provide an annual tax credit that will give Americans $400 a month for the next two years as mortgage rates come down to put toward their mortgages when they buy their first home or trade up for a little more space.  (Applause.)  That’s for two years.  

And my administration is also eliminating title insurance [fees] on federally backed mortgages.  (Applause.)  When you refinance your home, you can save $1,000 or more as a consequence.  (Applause.)  

For millions of renters, we’re cracking down on big landlords who use antitrust law — using antitrust — who break antitrust laws — (applause) — by price-fixing and driving up rents.  (Applause.) 

We’ve cut red tape so builders can get federally financing, which is already helping build a record 1.7 million new house u- — housing units nationwide.

Now pass — now pass [my plan] and build and renovate 2 million affordable homes and bring those rents down.  (Applause.)

To remain the strongest economy in the world, we need to have the best education system in the world.  (Applause.)  And I, like I suspect all of you, want to give a child — every child a good start by providing access to preschool for three- and four-years-old.  (Applause.) 

You know, I think I pointed out last year — (applause) — I think I pointed out last year that children coming from broken homes where there’s no books, they’re not read to, they’re not spoken to very often start school — kindergarten or first grade hearing — having heard a million fewer words spoken. 

Well, studies show that children who go to preschool are nearly 50 percent more likely to finish high school and go on to earn a two- and four-year degree no matter what their background is.  (Applause.)

I met a year and a half ago with the leaders of the Business Roundtable.  They were mad that I was ever — angry — I — well, they were discussing — (laughter) — why I wanted to spend money on education. 

I pointed out to them: As Vice President, I met with over 8- — I think it was 182 of those folks — don’t hold me to the exact number — and I asked them what they need most — the CEOs.  And you’ve had the same experience on both sides of the aisle.  They say, “A better-educated workforce,” right? 

So, I looked at them.  And I say, “I come from Delaware.  DuPont used to be the eighth-largest corporation in the world.  And every new enter- — enterprise they bought, they educated the workforce to that enterprise.  But none of you do that anymore.  Why are you angry with me providing you the opportunity for the best-educated workforce in the world?” 

And they all looked at me and said, “I think you’re right.”  (Applause.)

I want to expand high-quality tutoring and summer learning to see that every child learns to read by third grade.  (Applause.) 

I’m also connecting local businesses and high schools so students get hands-on experience and a path to a good-paying job whether or not they go to college.  (Applause.)

And I want to make sure that college is more affordable.  Let’s continue increasing the Pell Grants to working- and middle-class families and increase record investments in HBCUs and minority-serving institutions, including Hispanic institutions.  (Applause.)

When I was told I couldn’t universally just change the way in which we did — dealt with student loans, I fixed two student loan programs that already existed to reduce the burden of student debt for nearly 4 million Americans, including nurses, firefighters — (applause) — and others in public service.

Like Keenan Jones, a public educator in Minnesota, who’s here with us tonight.  Keenan, where are you?  (Applause.)  Keenan, thank you.

He’s educated hundreds of students so they can go to college.  Now he’s able to help, after debt forgiveness, get his own daughter to college.  (Applause.)

And, folks, look, such relief is good for the economy because folks are now able to buy a home, start a business, start a family.  

And while we’re at it, I want to give public school teachers a raise.  (Applause.)

And, by the way, the first couple of years, we cut the deficit.

Now let me speak to the question of fundamental fairness for all Americans.  I’ve been delivering real results in fiscally responsible ways.  We’ve already cut the federal deficit — we’ve already cut the federal deficit by over $1 trillion.  (Applause.) 

I signed a bipartisan deal to cut another trillion dollars in the next decade.  (Applause.) 

It’s my goal to cut the federal deficit another $3 trillion by making big corporations and the very wealthy finally beginning to pay their fair share.  (Applause.)

Look, I’m a capitalist.  If you want to make or can make a million or millions of bucks, that’s great.  Just pay your fair share in taxes.  (Applause.) 

A fair tax code is how we invest in things that make this country great: healthcare, education, defense, and so much more. 
 
But here’s the deal.  The last administration enacted a $2 trillion tax cut overwhelmingly benefit the top 1 percent — the very wealthy —

AUDIENCE:  Booo —

THE PRESIDENT:  — and the biggest corporations — and exploded the federal deficit.  (Applause.) 

They added more to the national debt than any presidential term in American history.  Check the numbers.
 
Folks at home, does anybody really think the tax code is fair? 

AUDIENCE:  No!

THE PRESIDENT:  Do you really think the wealthy and big corporations need another $2 trillion tax break? 

AUDIENCE:  No!

THE PRESIDENT:  I sure don’t.  I’m going to keep fighting like hell to make it fair.  Under my plan, nobody earning less than $400,000 a year will pay an additional penny in federal taxes — (applause) — nobody — not one penny.  And they haven’t yet.

In fact, the Child Tax Credit I passed during the pandemic cut taxes for millions of working families and cut child poverty in half.  (Applause.)

Restore that Child Tax Credit.  No child should go hungry in this country.  (Applause.)

The way to make the tax code fair is to make big corporations and the very wealthy begin to pay their share.  Remember in 2020, 55 of the biggest companies in America made $40 billion and paid zero in federal income tax.  Zero. 
 

AUDIENCE:  Booo —

THE PRESIDENT:  Not anymore.

Thanks to the law I wrote and we signed, big companies now have to pay a minimum of 15 percent.  But that’s still less than working people pay in federal taxes.
 
It’s time to raise the corporate minimum tax to at least 21 percent — (applause) — so every big corporation finally begins to pay their fair share.

I also want to end tax breaks for Big Pharma, Big Oil, private jets, massive executive pay when it was only supposed to be a million bal- — a million dollars that could be deducted.  They can pay them $20 million if they want, but deduct a million.

End it now.

 You know, there are 1,000 billionaires in America.  You know what the average federal tax is for those billionaires?

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Zero!

THE PRESIDENT:  No.  (Laughter.) 

They’re making great sacrifices — 8.2 percent. 
 
AUDIENCE:  Booo —

THE PRESIDENT:  That’s far less than the vast majority of Americans pay.

No billionaire should pay a lower federal tax rate than a teacher, a sanitation worker, or a nurse.  (Applause.)

I proposed a minimum tax for billionaires of 25 percent — just 25 percent.  You know what that would raise?  That would raise $500 billion over the next 10 years.  (Applause.)
 
And imagine what that could do for America.  Imagine a future with affordable childcare, millions of families can get what they need to go to work to help grow the economy.  (Applause.)
 
Imagine a future with paid leave, because no one should have to choose between working and taking care of their sick family member.  (Applause.)
 
Imagine — imagine a future with home care and eldercare, and people living with disabilities so they can stay in their homes and family caregivers can finally get the pay they deserve
.

Tonight, let’s all agree once again to stand up for seniors.  (Applause.)

Many of my friends on the other side of the aisle want to put Social Security on the chopping block.

If anyone here tries to cut Social Security or Medicare or raise the retirement age, I will stop you.  (Applause.)

The working people — the working people who built this country pay more into Social Security than millionaires and billionaires do.  It’s not fair.

We have two ways to go.  Republicans can cut Social Security and give more tax breaks to the wealthy.  I will —

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible.)

THE PRESIDENT:  That’s the proposal.  Oh, no?  You guys don’t want another $2 trillion tax cut?

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Liar!

THE PRESIDENT:  I kind of thought that’s what your plan was.  (Laughter.)  Well, that’s good to hear.  You’re not going to cut another $2 trillion for the super-wealthy?  That’s good to hear.

I’ll protect and strengthen Social Security and make the wealthy pay their fair share.  (Applause.)

Look, too many corporations raise prices to pad their profits, charging more and more for less and less.

That’s why we’re cracking down on corporations that engage in price gouging and deceptive pricing, from food to healthcare to housing.

In fact, the snack companies think you won’t notice if they change the size of the bag and put a hell of a lot fewer — (laughter) — same — same size bag — put fewer chips in it.  No, I’m not joking.  It’s called “shrink-flation.”

Pass Bobby Casey’s bill and stop this.  (Applause.)  I really mean it.

You probably all saw that commercial on Snickers bars.  (Laughter.)  And you get — you get charged the same amount, and you got about, I don’t know, 10 percent fewer Snickers in it.  (Laughter.)

Look, I’m also getting rid of junk fees — those hidden fees — (applause) — at the end of your bill that are there without your knowledge.  My administration announced we’re cutting credit card late fees from $32 to $8.  (Applause.)

Banks and credit card companies are allowed to charge what it costs them to in- — to instigate the collection.  And that’s more — a hell of a lot like $8 than 30-some dollars.

 But they don’t like it.  The credit card companies don’t like it, but I’m saving American families $20 billion a year with all of the junk fees I’m eliminating.  (Applause.)

Folks at home, that’s why the banks are so mad.  It’s $20 billion in profit.
 
I’m not stopping there.

My administration has proposed rules to make cable, travel,utilities, and online ticket sellers tell you the total price up front so there are no surprises.  (Applause.)

It matters.  It matters.

And so does this.  In November, my team began serious negotiations with a bipartisan group of senators.  The result was a bipartisan bill with the toughest set of border security reforms we’ve ever seen.
 
AUDIENCE:  Booo —

THE PRESIDENT:  Oh, you don’t think so?

AUDIENCE:  Booo —

THE PRESIDENT:  Oh, you don’t like that bill — huh? — that conservatives got together and said was a good bill?  I’ll be darned.  That’s amazing.

That bipartisan bill would hire 1,500 more security agents and officers, 100 more immigration judges to help tackle the backload of 2 million cases, 4,300 more asylum officers, and new policies so they can resolve cases in six months instead of six years now.  (Applause.)  What are you against?
 
One hundred more high-tech drug detection machines to significantly increase the ability to screen and stop vehicles smuggling fentanyl into America that’s killing thousands of children.  (Applause.)
 
This bill would save lives and bring order to the border.  (Applause.)
 
It would also give me and any new president new emergency authority to temporarily shut down the border when the number of migrants at the border is overwhelming. 

The Border Patrol union has endorsed this bill.

(Cross-talk.)

The federal Chamber of Commerce has — yeah, yeah.  You’re saying “no.”  Look at the facts.  (Laughter and applause.)  I know — I know you know how to read. 

I believe that given the opportunity — for — a majority in the House and Senate would endorse the bill as well — a majority right now.

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yes!

THE PRESIDENT:  But unfortunately, politics have derailed this bill so far.

I’m told my predecessor called members of Congress in the Senate to demand they block the bill.  He feels political win — he viewed it as a — it would be a political win for me and a political loser for him.  It’s not about him.  It’s not about me.  I’d be a winner — not really.  I

REPRESENTATIVE GREENE:  What about Laken Riley?

(Cross-talk.)

AUDIENCE:  Booo —

REPRESENTATIVE GREENE:  Say her name!

THE PRESIDENT:  (The President holds up a pin reading “Say Her Name, Laken Riley.”)  Lanken — Lanken [Laken] Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed.

REPRESENTATIVE GREENE:  By an illegal!

THE PRESIDENT:  By an illegal.  That’s right.  But how many of thousands of people are being killed by legals?

(Cross-talk.)

To her parents, I say: My heart goes out to you.  Having lost children myself, I understand.

But, look, if we change the dynamic at the border — people pay people — people pay these smugglers 8,000 bucks to get across the border because they know if they get by — if they get by and let into the country, it’s six to eight years before they have a hearing.  And it’s worth the — taking the chance of the $8,000.

(Cross-talk.)

But — but if it’s only six mon- — six weeks, the idea is it’s highly unlikely that people will pay that money and come all that way knowing that they’ll be — able to be kicked out quickly.  (Applause.)

Folks, I would respectfully su- — suggest to my friend in — my Republican friends owe it to the American people.  Get this bill done.  We need to act now.  (Applause.)

AUDIENCE:  Get it done!  Get it done!  Get it done!

THE PRESIDENT:  And if my predecessor is watching: Instead of paying [playing] politics and pressuring members of Congress to block the bill, join me in telling the Congress to pass it.
 
We can do it together.
 
But that’s what he apparently — here’s what he will not do.
 
I will not demonize immigrants, saying they are “poison in the blood of our country.”  (Applause.)
 
I will not separate families.  (Applause.)
 
I will not ban people because of their faith.
 
Unlike my predecessor, on my first day in office, I introduced a comprehensive bill to fix our immigration system.  Take a look at it.  It has all these and more: secure the border, provide a pathway to citizenship for DREAMers, and so much more.  (Applause.)

But unlike my predecessor, I know who we are as Americans.  We’re the only nation in the world with a heart and soul that draws from old and new. 
 
Home to Native Americans whose ancestors have been here for thousands of years.  Home to people of every pla- — from every place on Earth. 

They came freely.  Some came in chains.  Some came when famine struck, like my ancestral family in Ireland.  Some to flee persecution, to chase dreams that are impossible anywhere but here in America.
 
That’s America.  (Applause.)  And we all come from somewhere, but we’re all Americans.
 
Look, folks, we have a simple choice: We can fight about fixing the border or we can fix it.  (Applause.)  I’m ready to fix it.  Send me the border bill now.
 

AUDIENCE:  Fix it!  Fix it!  Fix it!

THE PRESIDENT:  A transformational his- — moment in history happened 58 — 59 years ago today in Selma, Alabama.  Hundreds of foot soldiers for justice marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, named after the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, to claim their fundamental right to vote.

They were beaten.  They were bloodied and left for dead.  Our late friend and former colleague John Lewis was on that march.  We miss him.  (Applause.) 

But joining us tonight are other marchers, both in the gallery and on the floor, including Bettie Mae Fikes, known as the “Voice of Selma.” 

The daughter of gospel singers and preachers, she sang songs of prayer and protest on that Bloody Sunday to help shake the nation’s conscience. 

Five months later, the Voting Rights Act passed and was signed into law.  (Applause.)

Thank you.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  (Applause.)

But 59 years later, there are forces taking us back in time: voter suppression, election subversion, unlimited dark money, extreme gerrymandering.
 
John Lewis was a great friend to many of us here.  But if you truly want to honor him and all the heroes who marched with him, then it’s time to do more than talk.  (Applause.)

Pass the Freedom to Vote Act, the John Lewis Voting Right[s] Act.  (Applause.) 

And stop — stop denying another core value of America: our diversity across American life.  Banning books is wrong.  Instead of erasing history, let’s make history.  (Applause.) 
 
I want to protect fundamental rights. 
 
Pass the Equality Act.  (Applause.) 

And my message to transgender Americans: I have your back.  (Applause.)

Pass the PRO Act for workers’ rights.  (Applause.) 
 
Raise the federal minimum wage,
because every worker has the right to a decent living more than eig- — seven bucks an hour.  (Applause.)

We’re also making history by confronting the climate crisis, not denying it.  I don’t think any of you think there’s no longer a climate crisis.  At least, I hope you don’t.  (Laughter.)

I’m taking the most significant action ever on climate in the history of the world.  (Applause.) 

I’m cutting our carbon emissions in half by 2030; creating tens of thousands of clean energy jobs, like the IBEW workers building and installing 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations — (applause); conserving 30 percent of America’s lands and waters by 2030; and taking action on environmental justice — fence-line communities smothered by the legacy of pollution.
 
And patterned after the Peace Corps and AmericaCorps [AmeriCorps], I launched the Climate Corps — (applause) — to put 20,000 young people to work in the forefront of our clean energy future.  I’ll triple that number in a decade.  (Applause.)

To state the obvious, all Americans deserve the freedom to be safe.  And America is safer today than when I took office.

The year before I took office, murder rates went up 30 percent.

MR. NIKOUI:  Remember Abbey Gate!

THE PRESIDENT:  Thirty percent, they went up — 

MR. NIKOUI:  United States Marines!  Kareem Mae’Lee Nikoui!

THE PRESIDENT:  — the biggest increase in history.

MR. NIKOUI:  (Inaudible.)

THE PRESIDENT:  It was then, through no — through my American Rescue Plan — which every American [Republican] voted against, I might add — we made the largest investment in public safety ever.
 
Last year, the murder rate saw the sharpest decrease in history.  Violent crime fell to one of its lowest levels in more than 50 years. 
 
But we have more to do.  We have to help cities invest in more community police officers, more mental health workers, more community violence intervention. (Applause.)
 
Give communities the tools to crack down on gun crime, retail crime, and carjacking.Keep building trust, as I’ve been doing, by taking executive action on police reform and calling for it to be the law of the land.

Directing my Cabinet to review the federal classification of marijuana and expunging thousands of convictions for the mere possession, because no one should be jailed for simply using or have it on their record.  (Applause.)

Take on crimes of domestic violence.  I’m ramping up the federal enforcement of the Violence Against Women Act that I proudly wrote when I was a senator so we can finally — finally end the scourge against women in America.  (Applause.) 

There are other kinds of violence I want to stop.

With us tonight is Jasmine, whose nine-year-old sister Jackie was murdered with 21 classmates and teachers in her elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. 

Very soon after that happened, Jill and I went to Uvalde for a couple days.  We spent hours and hours with each of the families.  We heard their message so everyone in this room, in this chamber could hear the same message.

The constant refrain — and I was there for hours, meeting with every family.  They said, “Do something.”  “Do something.”

Well, I did do something by establishing the first-ever Office of Gun Violence Prevention in the White House, that the Vice President is leading the charge.  Thank you for doing it.  (Applause.)

Meanwhile — (applause) — meanwhile, my predecessor told the NRA he’s proud he did nothing on guns when he was President.
 

AUDIENCE:  Booo —

THE PRESIDENT:  After another shooting in Iowa recently, he said — when asked what to do about it, he said, just “get over it.”  That was his quote.  Just “get over it.”

I say stop it.  Stop it, stop it, stop it.  (Applause.)

I’m proud we beat the NRA when I signed the most significant gun safety law in nearly 30 years because of this Congress.  We now must beat the NRA again.
 
I’m demanding a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.  (Applause.)  Pass universal background checks.  (Applause.) 

None of this — none of this — I taught the Second Amendment for 12 years.  None of this violates the Second Amendment or vilifies responsible gun owners.

(Cross-talk.)

You know, as we manage challenges at home, we’re also managing crises abroad, including in the Middle East.

I know the last five months have been gut-wrenching for so many people — for the Israeli people, for the Palestinian people, and so many here in America. 

This crisis began on October 7th with a massacre by a terrorist group called Hamas, as you all know.  One thousand two hundred innocent people — women and girls, men and boys — slaughtered after enduring sexual violence.  The deadliest day of the — for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.  And 250 hostages taken.
 
Here in this chamber tonight are families whose loved ones are still being held by Hamas.  I pledge to all the families that we will not rest until we bring every one of your loved ones home.
 
We also — (applause) — we will also work around the clock to bring home Evan and Paul — Americans being unjustly detained by the Russians — and others around the world.
 
Israel has a right to go after Hamas.  Hamas ended this conflict by releasing the hostages, laying down arms — could end it by — by releasing the hostages, laying down arms, and s- — surrendering those responsible for October 7th.

But Israel has a h- — excuse me.  Israel has a added burden because Hamas hides and operates among the civilian population like cowards — under hospitals, daycare centers, and all the like. 

Israel also has a fundamental responsibility, though, to protect innocent civilians in Gaza.  (Applause.)
 
This war has taken a greater toll on innocent civilians than all previous wars in Gaza combined.  More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed —
 
AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Says who?

THE PRESIDENT:  — most of whom are not Hamas.  Thousands and thousands of innocents — women and children.  Girls and boys also orphaned. 
 
Nearly 2 million more Palestinians under bombardment or displacement.  Homes destroyed, neighborhoods in rubble, cities in ruin.  Families without food, water, medicine. 
 
It’s heartbreaking.  

I’ve been working non-stop to establish an immediate ceasefire that would last for six weeks to get all the prisoners released — all the hostages released and to get the hostages home and to ease the intolerable an- — humanitarian crisis and build toward an enduring — a more — something more enduring.
 
The United States has been leading international efforts to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza.  Tonight, I’m directing the U.S. military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the coast of Gaza that can receive large shipments carrying food, water, medicine, and temporary shelters. 
 
No U.S. boots will be on the ground. 

A temporary pier will enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day.  (Applause.)  
 
And Israel must also do its part.  Israel must allow more aid into Gaza and ensure humanitarian workers aren’t caught in the crossfire.  (Applause.) 
 
And they’re announcing they’re going to — they’re going to ca- — have a crossing in Northern Gaza.

To the leadership of Israel, I say this: Humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip.  Protecting and saving innocent lives has to be a priority. 
 
As we look to the future, the only real solution to the situation is a two-state solution over time.  (Applause.)
 
And I say this as a lifelong supporter of Israel, my entire career. 
No one has a stronger record with Israel than I do.  I challenge any of you here.  I’m the only American president to visit Israel in wartime. 

But there is no other path that guarantees Israel’s security and democracy.  There is no other path that guarantees Pa- — that Palestinians can live in peace with po- — with peace and dignity. 

And there is no other path that guarantees peace between Israel and all of its neighbors — including Saudi Arabia, with whom I’m talking.    

Creating stability in the Middle East also means containing the threat posed by Iran.  That’s why I built a coalition of more than a dozen countries to defend international shipping and freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. 

I’ve ordered strikes to degrade the Houthi capability and defend U.S. forces in the region. 

As Commander-in-Chief, I will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and our military personnel.  (Applause.)

For years, I’ve heard many of my Republican and Democratic friends say that China is on the rise and America is falling behind.  They’ve got it backwards.  I’ve been saying it for over four years, even when I wasn’t president. 

America is rising.  We have the best economy in the world.  And since I’ve come to office, our GTB [GDP] is up, our trade deficit with China is down to the lowest point in over a decade.  (Applause.)  

And we’re standing up against China’s unfair economic practices. 
 
We’re standing up for peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits. 
 
I’ve revitalized our partnership and alliance in the Pacific: India, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Pacific Islands.  I’ve made sure that the most advanced American technologies can’t be used in China — not allowing to trade them there.  
 
Frankly, for all his tough talk on China, it never occurred to my predecessor to do any of that.  (Applause.)  

I want competition with China, not conflict.  And we’re in a stronger position to win the conflict [competition] of the 21st century against China than anyone else for that matter — than at any time as well.

Here at home, I’ve signed over 400 bipartisan bills.  But there’s more to pass my Unity Agenda.
 
Strengthen penalties on fentanyl trafficking. 
You don’t want to do that, huh? 

Pass bipartisan privacy legislation to protect our children online.  (Applause.)

Harness — harness the promise of AI to protect us from peril.  Ban AI voice impersonations and more. 

And keep our truly sacred obligation to train and equip those we send into harm’s way and care for them and their families when they come home and when they don’t.  (Applause.) 

That’s why, with the strong support and help of Denis and the VA, I signed the PACT Act — (applause) — one of the most significant laws ever, helping millions of veterans exposed to toxins who now are battling more than 100 different cancers.   Many of them don’t come home, but we owe them and their families support.  

And we owe it to ourselves to keep supporting our new health research agency called ARPA-H — (applause) — and remind us — to remind us that we can do big things, like end cancer as we know it.  And we will.  (Applause.)  

Let me close with this.  (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT:  Yay!  (Applause and laughter.)

I know you don’t want to hear anymore, Lindsey, but I got to say a few more things.  (Laughter.)  

I know I may not look like it, but I’ve been around a while.  (Laughter and applause.)  When you get to be my age, certain things become clearer than ever. 

I know the American story.  Again and again, I’ve seen the contest between competing forces in the battle for the soul of our nation, between those who want to pull America back to the past and those who want to move America into the future. 
 

My lifetime has taught me to embrace freedom and democracy, a future based on core values that have defined America — honesty, decency, dignity, and equality — (applause); to respect everyone; to give everyone a fair shot; to give hate no safe harbor.  (Applause.)
 
Now, other people my age see it differently.  (Laughter.)  The American story of resentment, revenge, and retribution.

That’s not me.  I was born amid World War Two, when America stood for the freedom of the world.  I grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont, Delaware, among working-class people who built this country.  

I watched in horror as two of my heroes — like many of you did — Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy, were assassinated.  And their legacies inspired me to pur- — pursue a car- — a career in service. 

I left a law firm and became a public defender because my city of Wilmington was the only city in America occupied by the National Guard after Dr. King was assassinated because of the riots.  And I became a county councilman almost by accident.

I got elected to the United States Senate when I had no intention of running, at age 29. 

Then vice president to our first Black president.  Now a president to the first woman vice president.  (Applause.)

In my career, I’ve been told I was too young.  (Laughter.)  By the way, they didn’t let me on the Senate elevators for votes sometimes.  They — not a joke.  (Laughter.)

And I’ve been told I am too old.  (Laughter.) 

Whether young or old, I’ve always been known — I’ve always known what endures.  I’ve known our North Star.  The very idea of America is that we’re all created equal, deserves to be treated equally throughout our lives. 
 
We’ve never fully lived up to that idea, but we’ve never walked away from it either.  And I won’t walk away from it now. 
(Applause.) 

I’m optimistic.  I really am.  I’m optimistic, Nancy.  (Applause.) 

AUDIENCE:  Four more years!  Four more years!  Four more years!

THE PRESIDENT:  My fellow Americans, the issue facing our nation isn’t how old we are; it’s how old are our ideas.  (Applause.)  

Hate, anger, revenge, retribution are the oldest of ideas.  But you can’t lead America with ancient ideas that only take us back.  To lead America, the land of possibilities, you need a vision for the future and what can and should be done.  (Applause.)  

Tonight, you’ve heard mine. 

I see a future where [we’re] defending democracy, you don’t diminish it.
 
I see a future where we restore the right to choose and protect our freedoms, not take them away.  (Applause.)
 
I see a future where the middle class has — finally has a fair shot and the wealthy have to pay their fair share in taxes.  (Applause.)  
 
I see a future where we save the planet from the climate crisis and our country from gun violence.  (Applause.)  
 
Above all, I see a future for all Americans.  I see a country for all Americans.  And I will always be President for all Americans because I believe in America.  I believe in you, the American people.  (Applause.)  You’re the reason we’ve never been more optimistic about our future than I am now. 
 
So, let’s build the future together.  Let’s remember who we are. 
 
We are the United States of America.  (Applause.)  And there is nothing — nothing beyond our capacity when we act together.  (Applause.) 

God bless you all.  And may God protect our troops.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  (Applause.)

10:33 P.M. EST

FACT SHEET: In SOTU, Biden Continues the Fight for Reproductive Freedom, Calls on Congress to Restore Protections Under Roe

New Yorkers protest against the fall of reproductive freedom. Following the radical religious Supreme Court’s overturn of reproductive freedom under Roe with its Dobbs decision, dozens of states immediately instituted abortion bans, hundreds of laws have been introduced to restrict access to reproductive health care and to establish “personhood” of embryos. Biden-Harris has attempted to push back with federal actions to protect reproductive freedom © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

The White House provided this fact sheet updating efforts by the Biden-Harris Administration to protect women’s reproductive freedom in the face of the ongoing assault from states and courts dominated by the religious right. The devastating impacts on the lives of women and families has been clear – most recently in Alabama’s use of “personhood” to elevate the “rights” of a frozen embryo over the mother and inject government control over her life and future. And Biden’s forceful whole-of-government approach is in contrast to the presumed Republican nominee, Trump’s, promise of instituting a national abortion ban of 15 or 16 weeks, Trump is not sure yet which number sounds better, and prosecuting women who try to assert their reproductive freedom.—Karen Rubin, [email protected]

Nearly two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to choose, millions of Americans are living under extreme state abortion bans. These dangerous laws are putting women’s health and lives at risk and threatening doctors with jail time, including life in prison, for providing the health care they have been trained to provide. And Republicans’ extreme out-of-touch agenda has put access to fertility treatments at risk for families who are desperately trying to get pregnant.
 
Tonight, Kate Cox and Latorya Beasley will join the First Lady as her guests at the State of the Union. Kate, a mother of two from Texas, has experienced the devastating consequences of state abortion bans and courageously spoke out about her experience seeking the care she needed to preserve her health—becoming one of the first women in 50 years to have to turn to the courts to ask permission to receive the abortion that her doctor recommended. She, like too many other women across the country, was ultimately forced to travel out of state for care that she would have been able to receive if Roe v. Wade were still the law of the land.
 
After a ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court put access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) on pause in much of the state, Latorya and her husband, who had been preparing for another round of IVF, learned that their embryo transfer was abruptly canceled. This heartbreaking setback in her and her husband’s journey to have their second child through IVF is yet another example of how the overturning of Roe v. Wade has disrupted access to reproductive health care for women and families across the country.
 
President Biden and Vice President Harris believe that stories like Kate’s and Latorya’s should never happen in America. But Republican elected officials want to impose this reality on women nationwide. They are doubling down on their assault on fundamental freedoms by proposing ever-more extreme bans in states and three national abortion bans in Congress. And, just last week, Senate Republicans blocked a vote to safeguard nationwide access to IVF. Their ongoing disregard for women’s ability to make these decisions for themselves and their families is outrageous and unacceptable.
 
In his State of the Union Address, President Biden will again call on Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade in federal law so women in every state have the freedom to make deeply personal health care decisions. And the Biden-Harris Administration will continue to take executive action to protect access to reproductive health care, including through ongoing implementation of the President’s three Executive Orders and a Presidential Memorandum issued since the Court overturned Roe v. Wade. To date, the Administration has taken action to:

  • Protect access to abortion, including FDA-approved medication abortion;
  • Defend access to emergency medical care;
  • Support the ability to travel for reproductive health care;
  • Strengthen access to high-quality, affordable contraception;
  • Safeguard the privacy of patients and health care providers; and
  • Ensure access to accurate information and legal resources.

Protect Access to Abortion, Including FDA-Approved Medication Abortion
 
The Administration will continue fighting to protect a woman’s ability to access abortion care, including by defending access to FDA-approved, safe and effective medication abortion. The Administration will continue to:

  • Protect Access to Safe and Legal Medication Abortion.  On what would have been the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, President Biden issued a Presidential Memorandum directing agencies to consider further efforts to support patients, providers, and pharmacies who wish to legally access, prescribe, or provide medication abortion. This Presidential Memorandum followed independent, evidence-based action taken by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to allow mifepristone to be prescribed by telehealth and sent by mail as well as to enable interested pharmacies to become certified to dispense the medication. As a result of the new pathway established by FDA, many pharmacies across the country—including major retail pharmacy chains—are now certified to dispense medication abortion. This new option gives many women the option to pick up their prescription for medication abortion at a local, certified pharmacy just as they would for any other medication.
     
  • Defend FDA Approval of Medication Abortion in Court.  FDA and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are defending access to mifepristone—a safe and effective drug used in medication abortion that FDA first approved more than twenty years ago—and FDA’s independent, expert judgment in court, including in a lawsuit before the Supreme Court that attempts to curtail access nationwide. The Administration will continue to stand by FDA’s decades-old approval and regulation of the medication as well as FDA’s ability to review, approve, and regulate a wide range of prescription medications. Efforts to impose outdated restrictions on mifepristone would limit access to this critical medication in every state in the country.
     
  • Partner with State Leaders on the Frontlines of Abortion Access.  The White House continues to partner with leaders on the frontlines of protecting access to abortion—both those fighting extreme state legislation and those advancing proactive policies to protect access to reproductive health care, including for patients who are forced to travel out of state for care. The Vice President has led these efforts, traveling to 20 states and meeting with more than 250 state legislators, health care providers, and advocates in the past year. And, on what would have been the 51st anniversary of Roe, the Vice President launched her nationwide Fight for Reproductive Freedoms tour to continue fighting back against extreme attacks throughout America.
     
  • Provide Access to Reproductive Health Care for Veterans.  The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) issued a final rule to allow VA to provide abortion counseling and, in certain circumstances, abortion care to veterans and VA beneficiaries. Under this rule, VA provides abortion services when the health or life of the patient would be endangered if the pregnancy were carried to term or when the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest. When working within the scope of their federal employment, VA employees may provide abortion services as authorized by federal law regardless of state restrictions. 
     
  • Support Access to Care for Service Members.  The Department of Defense (DoD) has taken action to ensure that Service members and their families can access reproductive health care and that DoD health care providers can operate effectively. DoD released policies to support Service members and their families’ ability to travel for lawful reproductive health care, including abortion care and assisted reproductive technology services, and to bolster Service members’ privacy and afford them the time and space needed to make personal health care decisions.

Defend Access to Emergency Medical Care
 
All patients, including women experiencing pregnancy loss and other pregnancy-related emergencies, must be able to access the emergency medical care required by federal law. The Administration will continue to:

  • Defend Access to Emergency Abortion Care.  Republican elected officials have put women’s lives at risk by banning abortion even when a doctor determines that an abortion is necessary to prevent serious health consequences. The Administration is committed to ensuring that women who are experiencing pregnancy loss and other pregnancy-related emergencies have access to the full rights and protections for emergency medical care afforded under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA)—including abortion care when that is the stabilizing treatment required. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued guidance and Secretary Becerra sent letters to providers affirming the Administration’s view that EMTALA preempts conflicting state law restricting access to abortion in emergency situations. The DOJ has taken action defend and enforce that interpretation before the Supreme Court, which is expected to rule by June.
     
  • Educate Patients and Health Care Providers on Their Rights and Obligations for Emergency Medical Care. To increase awareness of EMTALA and improve the procedures for ensuring that patients facing all types of medical emergencies receive the care to which they are entitled, HHS issued a comprehensive plan to educate all patients about their rights and to help ensure hospitals meet their obligations under federal law. This effort included the launch of new accessible and understandable resources about rights and protections for patients under EMTALA and the process for submitting a complaint. HHS will also disseminate training materials for health care providers and establish a dedicated team of experts who will increase the Department’s capacity to support hospitals and providers across the country in complying with federal requirements—to help ensure that every patient receives the emergency medical care required under federal law.

Support the Ability to Travel for Reproductive Health Care
 
Women must be able to cross state lines to access legal reproductive health care. In the face of threats to the constitutional right to travel, the Administration will continue to:

  • Defend the Right to Travel.  On the day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, President Biden reaffirmed the Attorney General’s statement that women must remain free to travel safely to another state to seek the care they need. In November 2023, DOJ filed a statement of interest in two lawsuits challenging the Alabama Attorney General’s threat to prosecute people who provide assistance to women seeking lawful out-of-state abortions. DOJ explained that the threatened Alabama prosecutions infringe the constitutional right to travel and made clear that states may not punish third parties for assisting women in exercising that right. DOJ continues to monitor states’ efforts to restrict the constitutional right to travel across state lines to receive lawful health care.  
     
  • Support Patients Traveling Out of State for Medical Care.  HHS issued a letter to U.S. governors inviting them to apply for Section 1115 waivers to expand access to care under the Medicaid program for women traveling from a state where reproductive rights are under attack and women may be denied medical care. HHS continues to review pending waiver applications and encourage state leaders to develop new waiver proposals that would support access to reproductive health care services.

Strengthen Access to High-Quality, Affordable Contraception
 
Contraception is an essential component of reproductive health care and has only become more important in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade. In addition to FDA’s approval of the first daily oral contraceptive for over-the-counter use, the Administration will continue to:

  • Strengthen Access to Affordable, High-Quality Contraception.  Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the President issued an Executive Order directing agencies to consider actions to improve access and affordability for women with private health insurance; bolster access across Federal health programs; promote access to over-the-counter contraception; and further support access for Service members, veterans, Federal employees, and college students. Recent actions taken to implement this Executive Order include:
    • The Departments of the Treasury, Labor, and HHS issued new guidance to clarify standards and support expanded coverage of a broader range of FDA-approved contraceptives at no cost under the Affordable Care Act. This action builds on guidance issued in July 2022 to clarify protections for contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
    • The Office of Personnel Management strengthened access to contraception for federal workers, retirees, and family members by issuing guidance to insurers participating in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program that incorporates the Departments’ guidance. OPM has also newly required insurers that participate in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program to take additional steps to educate enrollees about their contraception benefits.
    • The Secretary of HHS issued a letter to private health insurers, state Medicaid programs and state Children’s Health Insurance Programs, and Medicare plans about their obligations to cover contraception for those they serve. The letter targets a wide range of payers to advance compliance with existing standards and underscore the Administration’s commitment to ensuring that women across the country can access affordable contraception.
    • The Departments of the Treasury, Labor, and HHS issued a Request for Information to solicit public input on how to best ensure coverage and access to over-the-counter preventive services, including contraception, at no cost and without a prescription from a health care provider.
    • Vice President Harris and the Department of Education convened representatives from 68 college and university leaders in 32 states to hear promising strategies from leaders of postsecondary institutions for protecting and expanding access to contraception for their students and on campus.
    • The Gender Policy Council, Domestic Policy Council, and leaders from the Departments of the Treasury, Labor, and HHS called on private sector leaders to take robust additional actions to further expand access to contraception.
    • The Gender Policy Council and the Department of Health and Human Services joined a convening focused on strategies to expand the role of pharmacies and pharmacists in promoting access to contraception and breaking down barriers for consumers.
       
  • Expand Access to More Women Under the Affordable Care Act.  The Departments of the Treasury, Labor, and HHS proposed a rule to help ensure that all women with private health coverage who need and want contraception can obtain it without cost sharing as guaranteed under the Affordable Care Act. Millions of women have already benefited from this coverage, which has helped them save billions of dollars on contraception.
     
  • Support Access to Family Planning Services Through Title X Clinics.  HHS has strengthened access to care through Title X clinics, which have played a critical role in ensuring access to a broad range of high-quality family planning and preventive health services for more than 50 years. HHS provided funds to help these safety net clinics deliver equitable, affordable, client-centered, and high-quality family planning services and provide training and technical assistance for Title X clinics. Last year, HHS provided $263 million to over 4,000 Title X clinics across the country to provide a wide range of voluntary, client-centered family planning and related preventive services. The Title X Family Planning Program remains a critical part of the nation’s safety net, providing free or low-cost services for 2.6 million clients in 2022.
     
  • Promote Access to Contraception for Service Members and Their Families and Certain Dependents of Veterans.  To improve access to contraception at military hospitals and clinics, DoD expanded walk-in contraceptive care services for active-duty Service members and other Military Health System beneficiaries, and eliminated TRICARE copays for certain contraceptive services. And VA proposed a rule to eliminate out-of-pocket costs for certain types of contraception through the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Safeguard the Privacy of Patients and Health Care Providers
 
The Administration is committed to safeguarding sensitive health information and strengthening privacy protections for women and health care providers. The Administration will continue to:

  • Strengthen Reproductive Health Privacy under HIPAA.  HHS issued a proposed rule to strengthen privacy protections under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). As proposed, this rule would prevent an individual’s information from being disclosed to investigate, sue, or prosecute an individual, a health care provider, or a loved one simply because that person sought, obtained, provided, or facilitated legal reproductive health care, including abortion. By safeguarding sensitive information related to reproductive health care, the rule will strengthen patient-provider confidentiality and help health care providers give complete and accurate information to patients. Prior to the proposed ruleHHS issued guidance reaffirming HIPAA’s existing protections for the privacy of individuals’ protected health information.
     
  • Take Action Against Illegal Use and Sharing of Sensitive Health Information.  The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has committed to enforcing the law against illegal use and sharing of highly sensitive data, including information related to reproductive health care. Consistent with this commitment, the FTC has taken several enforcement actions against companies for disclosing consumers’ personal health information, including highly sensitive reproductive health data, without permission.
     
  • Help Consumers Protect Their Personal Data.  The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) launched a guide for consumers on best practices for protecting their personal data, including geolocation data, on mobile phones. The guide follows a proposed rule that would strengthen data breach rules to provide greater protections to personal data. Separately, HHS issued a how-to guide for consumers on steps they can take to better protect their data on personal cell phones or tablets and when using mobile health apps, like period trackers, which are generally not protected by HIPAA.
     
  • Protect Students’ Health Information.  The Department of Education (ED) issued guidance to over 20,000 school officials to remind them of their obligations to protect student privacy under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. The guidance helps ensure that school officials—at federally funded school districts, colleges, and universities—know that, with certain exceptions, they must obtain written consent from eligible students or parents before disclosing personally identifiable information from students’ educational records, which may include student health information. The guidance encourages school officials to consider the importance of student privacy, including health privacy, with respect to disclosing student records. ED also issued a know-your-rights resource to help students understand their privacy rights for health records at school. 
     
  • Safeguard Patients’ Electronic Health Information.  HHS issued guidance and a final rule affirming that doctors and other medical providers can take steps to protect patients’ electronic health information, including their information related to reproductive health care. HHS makes clear that patients have the right to ask that their electronic health information generally not be disclosed by a physician, hospital, or other health care provider. The guidance also reminds health care providers that HIPAA’s privacy protections apply to patients’ electronic health information.

Ensure Access to Accurate Information and Legal Resources
 
The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has led to chaos and confusion. To help ensure that Americans have access to accurate information about their rights, the Administration will continue to:

  • Ensure Easy Access to Reliable Information.  HHS launched and maintains ReproductiveRights.gov, which provides timely and accurate information on people’s right to access reproductive health care, including contraception, abortion services, and health insurance coverage, as well as how to file a patient privacy or nondiscrimination complaint. DOJ also launched justice.gov/reproductive-rights, a webpage that provides a centralized online resource on the Department’s ongoing work to protect access to reproductive health care services under federal law.
     

Hosted a Convening of Lawyers in Defense of Reproductive Rights.  DOJ and the Office of White House Counsel convened more than 200 lawyers and advocates from private firms, bar associations, legal aid organizations, reproductive rights groups, and law schools across the country for a convening of pro-bono attorneys, as directed in the first Executive Order. Following this convening, reproductive rights organizations launched the Abortion Defense Network to offer abortion-related legal defense services, including legal advice and representation.

SOTU Preview: Biden Offers Plan to Build on Economic Success

What a difference a year makes! The atmosphere for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address could not be more different from 2022, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. But his message, continuing to build on the progress of his Unity Agenda, repeats his theme to work in a bipartisan fashion for the good of the American people © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com via C-Span.

It is truly shocking to hear “poll” results where the majority of people think President Biden has done nothing, that the economy is weak, that no new jobs have been created. Beyond absurd – you have to wonder about who was polled, how the polling was done, or what rock these people have been under, or if they are permanently wired to Fox Fake News. This preview of the State of the Union Address providing a Fact Sheet on the Biden Administration’s economic record, comes from the White House:

President Biden has long believed that we must build the economy from the bottom up and middle out, not the top down. As the President says, when the middle class does well, the poor have a ladder up and the wealthy still do very well. He believes the best way to grow the economy, create good-paying jobs, and lower costs for families is by promoting workers, investing in America and its people, making the economy more competitive, and reforming the tax code to reward work and not wealth. Our progress over the last two years shows that his economic strategy is working.
 
The state of the economy is strong. In his State of the Union address, President Biden will highlight the historic progress we have made to bring the economy back from the pandemic and create more jobs in a two-year period than under any other president on record. He will discuss progress lowering costs and providing more breathing room for families, including cutting prescription drug costs, health insurance premiums, and energy bills, while driving the uninsured rate to historic lows. He will outline the manufacturing boom across the country—in infrastructure, semi-conductors, and clean energy—that is strengthening parts of the country left behind and creating good jobs, including for workers without college degrees.
 
And, he will emphasize that his economic strategy has been a fiscally responsible one. President Biden’s predecessor passed a nearly $2 trillion unpaid for tax cut with benefits skewed to the wealthy and large corporations, and the deficit went up every single year under his watch. Under President Biden, the deficit has fallen by $1.7 trillion, and his reforms to take on Big Pharma, lower prescription drug costs, and make the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share will reduce the deficit by hundreds of billions more.
 
President Biden knows that the work to build an economy from the bottom up and middle out is far from done. He will say that we need to build on this work to continue growing our economy and lowering costs. He will discuss the work to come to implement his historic investment agenda in a way that benefits all Americans. And, the President will preview the budget he will send to Congress on March 9, which will build on the historic economic progress of the past two years by continuing to invest in America and its people, continuing to lower costs for families—from child care to housing to college to health care—protecting and strengthening Social Security and Medicare, and reducing the deficit through additional reforms to ensure the wealthy and largest corporations pay their fair share.
 
Historic Progress to Create Jobs, Promote Workers, and Transition to Steady and Stable Growth

When President Biden took office, the economy was in crisis, millions were out of work, and Main Streets were shuttered. In two years, the President has overseen a historic economy recovery and laid the foundation for steady and stable growth in the years to come.

A historic, equitable economic recovery. President Biden’s economic strategy led to a historic recovery with tangible benefits for workers and families. Since President Biden took office, the economy has created more than 12 million jobs—including more than 800,000 manufacturing jobs—and the unemployment rate is at a 54-year low, including near record lows for Black workers. The unemployment rate for Hispanic workers hit a record low last year. The past two years were also the best two years for new small business applications on record. None of this progress was pre-ordained. Before President Biden signed his Rescue Plan into law, experts predicted it would take far longer to create this many jobs. And few—if any—experts predicted it would be possible to get the unemployment rate down to a level last seen in 1969. In fact, before the Rescue Plan passed, the Congressional Budget Office projected the unemployment rate in the first quarter of 2023 would be 4.8%, rather than its current level of 3.4%.

More breathing room and economic security for families. This historic jobs recovery, along with Biden-Harris Administration policies designed to help workers and families, has left families more economically secure than before the pandemic. Compared to pre-pandemic levels, households are now less likely to be delinquent on their credit card bills and mortgages, and more likely to have health insurance. They are facing fewer evictions and foreclosures than there were before the pandemic, and bankruptcy rates are lower as well. This economic security is giving families peace of mind and breathing room that they didn’t have before the pandemic. Child poverty also fell to a historic low in 2021, and the President will call on Congress to continue these gains through the expanded Child Tax Credit, even as he has taken action to lift nearly 1 million children out of poverty by modernizing nutrition benefits.

Progress on transitioning to steady, stable growth with lower inflation. In the wake of unprecedented economic disruption from a historic pandemic, inflation has been a challenge all over the globe. Last spring, President Biden set the goal of transitioning our economy to lower inflation, while maintaining a resilient job market for American workers. Now, annual inflation has fallen for six months straight, driven in large part by a roughly $1.50 decline in gas prices compared to last summer. Over the second half of 2022, three-month core inflation fell from nearly 8% at an annualized rate to 3% at an annualized rate—at the same time that the unemployment remained at or near 50-year lows. As a result of the progress on inflation and the resilience of the job market, wages adjusted for inflation are higher than they were seven months ago. While there is more work to do to bring inflation down and lower costs for families—and there may be setbacks along the way—the past six months have marked significant progress toward the President’s goal of bringing down inflation without giving up the economic progress we’ve made.

Manufacturing Boom Across the Country and Historic Investments in Infrastructure

Even before the pandemic, the middle class was hollowed out. Manufacturing jobs moved overseas and factories closed down. The President believes that the United States can lead the world in manufacturing again. His economic plan has done just that—generate a manufacturing boom across the country and build an economy where no one is left behind. The President’s economic plan is stimulating new factories and manufacturing lines and creating good-paying jobs that don’t require a four-year degree. His plan includes the most significant upgrade to our nation’s infrastructure in generations—an investment larger than FDR’s investment Rural Electrification and Eisenhower’s efforts to build the Interstate Highway system. It includes the most significant clean energy plan ever, transitioning the clean energy economy and lowering households’ energy costs. And, it includes the most substantial investment in science, innovation, and industrial strategy in over 50 years.
 
In just the two years since President Biden took office, we have spurred more than $700 billion in announced private investment in manufacturing, utilities, and energy from more than 200 companies in all 50 states. Much of this investment is driven by the semiconductor, energy, electric vehicles and batteries, and other cutting-edge sectors.
 
Ensuring President Biden’s agenda creates a future made in America. Building on the historic investment agenda the President has signed into law, President Biden is ensuring that our historic infrastructure investments use materials made in America. For decades, Buy America laws focused on iron and steel and only covered certain federally funded infrastructure projects. This giant loophole meant projects could be built with other materials sourced from anywhere in the world. The Biden-Harris Administration is working to close this loophole and implement new standards, once and for all, so materials for roads and bridges, airports, transit, rail, water, high-speed internet, and clean energy infrastructure are made in America and support American jobs.
 
The President will announce in the State of the Union that he is issuing proposed guidance to ensure construction materials from copper and aluminum to fiber optic cable, lumber, and drywall, are made in America. Once finalized, these standards will apply to virtually all infrastructure spending supported by Federal financial assistance—not simply roads and bridges, but also buildings, water infrastructure and high-speed internet, providing consistency for companies and state and local governments to apply the standards and a strong federal government-wide demand signal.
 
These steps complement the Administration’s implementation of the most robust updates in nearly 70 years to the Buy American Act for federal procurement. Those updates are helping to ensure that taxpayers’ dollars support American manufacturing, boost resiliency in critical industries, and create good-paying jobs right here at home. The Buy American rule increased the percentage value of component parts manufactured in the US from 55% to 60% this past fall as the first step toward increasing that value to 75%.
 
Lowering Health Care Costs for Families
 
The President knows what it’s like to stare at the ceiling, worried about paying for prescriptions or health care. He believes that every American has a right to the peace of mind that comes with knowing they have access to affordable, quality health care. President Biden passed legislation to lower health care and prescription drug costs for American families, giving families more breathing room. Tomorrow, he will discuss the historic progress we have made on lowering health care costs under his watch, including steps to strengthen Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and steps we must take to build on that progress and give more families the peace of mind of affordable prescriptions and health care.

$800 lower health care premiums. A record-setting 16.3 million people signed up for ACA coverage this year, and the national uninsured rate hit an all-time low last year. That’s thanks in large part to President Biden and Democrats in Congress’ work to lower premiums for ACA coverage by an average of $800 per person per year—along with President Biden’s actions to quadruple consumer assistance, increase outreach, and close the “family glitch” loophole that blocked many children and spouses from affordable coverage. Tomorrow, the President will call on Congress to make these savings for American families permanent, so we can continue our work to make health care a right, not a privilege.

60 million Medicare beneficiaries will be protected from skyrocketing drug costs. President Biden took on Big Pharma—and won. Thanks to the new prescription drug law, Medicare will be able to negotiate drug prices and cap out-of-pocket pharmacy costs at $2,000 per year under Part D, and drug companies will pay rebates to Medicare if they try to hike their prices faster than the rate of inflation. For the last six weeks, seniors across the country have been benefiting from key drug pricing protections that are putting money back in their pockets:

  • $35 price cap on insulin in Medicare. Starting this year, Medicare beneficiaries will pay no more than $35 per month per insulin prescription. 1.5 million people would have each saved, on average, $500 per year had this law been in effect in 2020. The President will call on Congress to extend this commonsense, life-saving protection to all Americans, not just people with Medicare.
     
  • $0 vaccines through Medicare. More adult vaccines are now available without any co-pays under Medicare Part D thanks to the new prescription drug law. This includes the shingles vaccine, which used to cost seniors as much as $200.

1 million surprise medical bills are prevented every month. Before President Biden took office, millions of people received surprise bills for out-of-network care, costing them hundreds or thousands of dollars. The Administration is protecting millions of consumers from surprise medical bills through the implementation of the No Surprises Act, which has already protected 10 million Americans from unfair, undeserved out-of-network charges.

$3,000 in savings on hearing aids. In October 2022, over-the-counter hearing aids hit the shelves following a rule from the Food and Drug Administration. Now, millions of Americans can buy hearing aids for low to moderate hearing loss without a prescription or exam. This is anticipated to save Americans as much as $3,000 per pair, providing more breathing room for the estimated 30 million Americans with mild-to-moderate hearing loss.

39 states and the District of Columbia have expanded Medicaid coverage. Missouri, Oklahoma, and South Dakota are the most recent states to expand Medicaid to hundreds of thousands of low-income adults previously locked out of Medicaid coverage. The Administration remains committed to closing the coverage gap in the remaining 11 states, and the President will call on Congress to finish the job. In addition, the Administration also worked with over half the states and DC to extend Medicaid postpartum coverage for millions of women.

Promoting Competition

As President Biden said at last year’s State of the Union, “capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism. It’s exploitation—and it drives up prices.” Over the past year, the Administration has been delivering for the American people to lower prices, protect workers, and increase competition across the economy. In this year’s State of the Union, the President will highlight progress we need to continue to make to promote competition and protect consumers.

Cracking down on junk feesThe Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is lowering or eliminating the banking and credit card “junk” fees that too many Americans pay. The CFPB announced a proposal that will slash excessive credit card late fees to $8 from approximately $30, which combined with other measures could save consumers up to $9 billion a year in late fees. Last year, the CFPB also targeted overdraft and bounced check fees—making changes that will cut fees by over $1 billion a year. The Department of Transportation (DOT) also proposed a rule that would require airlines and online search sites to disclose up front any fees to choose seats including to sit next to one’s child, for baggage, and for changes or cancellations. It also published a dashboard of airline policies when flights are delayed or cancelled due to issues under the airlines’ control, leading 9 airlines to change policies to guarantee coverage of hotels and 10 airlines to guarantee coverage of meals.

The President will re-state his call on Congress to pass a Junk Fees Prevention Act to ban resort and family seating fees, eliminate unnecessary early termination fees for internet and phone services, and crack down on excessive fees and other practices that drive up ticket prices. DOT will also launch a family seating dashboard to raise awareness about airline policies and undertake a rulemaking to ban these fees.

Addressing non-compete agreements. Roughly 30 million Americans, including many low-wage workers, are covered by non-compete agreements that can stifle wage growth for American workers by making it more difficult for workers to leave for higher-paying jobs. The Federal Trade Commission released a proposed rule in January 2023 to ban non-compete clauses, which it estimates will increases wages by $300 billion annually.

Lowering ocean shipping costs. Ocean carriers increased their rates by as much as 1,000% during the pandemic. Last June, Congress passed the Ocean Shipping Reform Act heeding the President’s call in the 2022 State of the Union. This legislation will cut costs for shippers, and in turn American families, and ensure fairer treatment for exports from our farmers and ranchers.

Lowering meat prices. The Administration has taken a number of steps to increase competition in the meat and poultry markets. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) has also issued proposed regulations under the Packers & Stockyards Act to increase competition and market integrity and to prevent abuse of farmers in the poultry growing system. USDA is also using $1 billion to expand independent meat processing capacity, so the market isn’t dominated by just a few big players.

Helping consumers get the right to repairThe President believes that consumers shouldn’t be restricted by big manufacturers from repairing their own equipment—whether it’s a tractor or a smartphone. After President Biden expressed strong support for the right to repair in his Competition Executive Order, Microsoft conducted a study on the issue and made its Surface devices more easily repairable and Apple announced self-service repair for certain devices.

Improving safety and accountability in nursing homesAs the President directed in last year’s State of the Union, CMS has taken action to strengthen oversight of the worst performing nursing homes, prevent abuse and Medicare fraud, and improve families’ ability to comparison shop across nursing homes. In the coming days and months, CMS will announce new actions to increase safety and accountability at nursing homes.

Reducing the Deficit by Ensuring the Wealthy and Large Corporations Pay their Fair Share

In the last two years, the Administration cut the deficit by more than $1.7 trillion—the largest deficit reduction in American history. The President believes we need to continue that progress—and reward work, not wealth.

Since coming to office, the President has signed legislation to make the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share and provide tax cuts for working families, while reducing the deficit. Under his plan, no one making under $400,000 per year will pay more in taxes.

Billionaire Minimum Tax. President Biden is a capitalist and believes that anyone should be able to become a millionaire or a billionaire. He also believes that it is wrong for America to have a tax code that results in America’s wealthiest households paying a lower tax rate than working families. In a typical year, billionaires pay an average tax rate of just 8%. In the State of the Union, he’ll call on Congress to pass his billionaire minimum tax. This minimum tax would make sure that the wealthiest Americans no longer pay a tax rate lower than teachers and firefighters.

Surcharge on corporate stock buybacksStock buybacks enable corporations to funnel tax-advantaged payouts to wealthy and foreign investors, instead of paying dividends that shareholders are required to pay taxes on. In addition, a number of experts have argued that CEOs—who are compensated mostly in stock—use buybacks to enrich themselves to the detriment of the long-term growth of the company. Last year, oil and gas companies made record profits and invested very little in domestic production and to keep gas prices down—instead they bought their own stock, giving all that profit to their CEOs and shareholders. President Biden signed into law a surcharge on corporate stock buyback, which reduces the differential tax treatment between buybacks and dividends and encourages businesses to invest in their growth and productivity as opposed to paying out corporate executives or funneling tax-preferred profits to foreign shareholders. In the State of the Union, the President will call for quadrupling the tax on corporate stock buybacks.

Corporate minimum taxIn 2020, 55 of the largest corporations that were profitable paid $0 in federal income tax. To end that unfairness in the tax code, President Biden signed into law a 15 percent minimum tax on the profits that large corporations—those with over $1 billion in profits—report to shareholders. This book minimum tax means that it will be harder for companies that say they’re earning a billion in profits to pay tax rates in the single digits on those profits. It also levels the playing field for companies—including small businesses—that are already paying their fair share.

Legislation to crack down on tax cheats and create a fairer tax system. Working people pay 99% of the taxes they owe on their income from wages and salaries, while the top 1 percent hides about 20% of their income from tax, including by funneling it through offshore accounts in tax havens that don’t report earnings. The President signed legislation into law that will crack down on wealthy people and large corporations that cheat on their taxes, while improving customer service for taxpayers. The legislation will not increase audit rates for families or small businesses making under $400,000 per year.

SOTU Preview: Biden to Outline Vision to Advance Progress on Unity Agenda in Year Ahead

This year’s State of the Union address by President Joe Biden will have a very different look, with Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy standing in place of Nancy Pelosi, but Biden plans to continue to press for further progress on the Unity Agenda he proposed last year © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com via C-SPAN.

During his first State of the Union address, President Biden announced a four-part Unity Agenda focused on areas where members of both parties can come together and make additional progress for the American people: ending cancer as we know it; delivering on the sacred obligation to veterans; tackling the mental health crisis; and beating the opioid and overdose epidemic.

Over the last year, the President was proud to work with Democrats and Republicans to enact major legislation that delivers on all aspects of this four-part agenda. In his State of the Union today, the President will announce a new set of policies to continue to make progress advancing his Unity Agenda and deliver results for families across the country.

Accelerating Progress to End Cancer as We Know It Today
Cancer has touched nearly every American family, and it remains the second leading cause of death in America. To accelerate progress in the fight against cancer, last year, the President and First Lady reignited the Cancer Moonshot with the goal of cutting U.S. cancer death rates by at least half in 25 years and improving the experience of individuals, caregivers, and families living with and surviving cancer. Over the past year, the Cancer Moonshot has announced nearly 30 new federal programs, policies and resources to close the screening gap, tackle environmental exposure, decrease preventable cancers, advance cutting-edge research, support patients and caregivers, and more. More than 60 private companies, non-profits, academic institutions, and patient groups have also answered the President’s call and stepped up with new actions and collaborations. The President will call on Congress to act to end cancer as we know it, and the Cancer Moonshot will drive additional progress this year by:

Bringing America’s cancer research system into the 21st century. As we work to continue the progress we’ve made over the last year, the Administration is urging Congress to reauthorize the National Cancer Act, which 52 years ago set up the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in its current form. The reauthorization will update the nation’s cancer research and care systems to put modern American innovation fully to work to end cancer as we know it. This includes standing up clinical trial networks, creating new data systems that break down silos, and ensuring that knowledge gained through research is available to as many experts as possible, so we can find answers faster and make a difference for patients. Working with Congress, we can also lock in the strong investment in cancer research that passed in 2016 as part of the broadly bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act, which otherwise expires this year.

Providing patient navigation support to every American facing cancer. The Biden-Harris Administration will take steps to ensure that patient navigation services – services that help guide individuals, caregivers, and families through cancer screening, diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship – are covered benefits going forward for as many people facing cancer as possible. These patient navigation services not only improve the experience for those patients and their families, they improve patient outcomes and provide value back to the health care system. 

Tackling the biggest single driver of cancer deaths in this country – smoking. The Administration is preparing further action to help people avoid smoking in the first place and support Americans who want to quit. These steps could prevent as much as 30 percent of cancer deaths in this country, saving up to 130,000 American lives, annually. While we have made progress, tobacco products still hook too many young people at an early age and take control away from individual Americans to make the decision not to smoke. The Administration is working to put that control back in the hands of Americans.

During his first State of the Union address, President Biden cited the recent announcement of his plan to supercharge the Cancer Moonshot and called on Congress to fund ARPA-H, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, to drive breakthroughs in cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and other diseases. Since that time, the President and Congress have stepped up together to provide ARPA-H $2.5 billion in initial investment. The President also signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act, which will lower prescription drug costs for tens of thousands of cancer patients with Medicare coverage. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will also help cut cancer deaths by accelerating clean-up at Superfund sites and helping states and communities replace lead pipes and service lines.

Supporting America’s Veterans and Their Families, Caregivers, and Survivors
The President believes there is no more sacred obligation than taking care of our nation’s military service members, veterans, and their families, caregivers, and survivors. On health care, education, and housing, the Administration and Congress have worked together to make progress to connect veterans and their families to needed resources. Over the past year, the Administration expanded benefits for veterans as well as their caregivers and survivors, and delivered more benefits and health care more quickly to more veterans than ever before. In 2022, VA processed an all-time record 1.7 million veteran claims, and delivered $128 billion in earned benefits to 6.1 million veterans and survivors. In the State of the Union, the President will announce his Administration plans to continue that work by:

Reducing veteran suicide. Suicide among veterans is a public health and national security crisis. Since 2010, more than 71,000 veterans have died by suicide – more than the total number of deaths from combat during the Vietnam War and operations in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Since releasing a comprehensive strategy for reducing military and veteran suicide, both DOD and VA reported declines in suicide deaths, but much more remains to be done. This will include actions to:  

  • Support states and territories. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is working with the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Defense (DOD) to partner with 49 states and 5 territories through the Governor’s Challenge. To help facilitate this work, VA will launch a new $10 million program to provide federal resources to states, territories, Tribes and Tribal organizations to develop and implement proposals under the program.
     
  • Increase lethal means safety: In the coming year, VA will deploy new resources to improve suicide risk identification and increase lethal means safety counseling and safe storage. VA will offer additional training for the 1.3 million community providers and expand KeepItSecure, the landmark lethal means safety campaign, with new resources and materials for providers, caregivers, family members of veterans, and gun shop owners to encourage safe storage of firearms and lethal medications.
     
  • Expand outreach to justice involved veterans. Veterans who become involved in the criminal justice system may be at high risk of suicide. Through Veteran Treatment Courts and other justice outreach engagements, VA is able to provide veterans access to benefits and services that can be life-changing, and VA will accelerate hiring of veteran justice outreach professionals to expand these programs.
     
  • Expand Access to Legal Support Services. VA will build upon and expand its current 28 Medical-Legal Partnerships. Family caregivers participating in VA’s Program of Comprehensive Assistance will also be able to receive Financial and Legal Assistance later this year. VA will also award up to 75 grants under its new Legal Services for Homeless Veterans and Veterans at Risk for Homeless (LSV-H) program to provide legal services to veterans who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

Expanding access to peer support, including mental health services. Military service increases the risk of mental health problems and other adjustment challenges for veterans. Veteran Peer Specialists are a critical asset within VA’s workforce, working across various programs to connect their fellow veterans to services, participate as members of health care teams, and provide individual and group-based peer support. Last year, VA pledged to hire an additional 280 peer specialists and is on track to meet this goal by the end of 2023. VA will increase the number of peer specialists working across VA medical centers by 350 over the next 7 years.

Ensuring access to affordable, stable housing for low-income veterans. Every veteran should have a roof over their head. The President’s upcoming budget will triple the number of extremely low-income veterans who can access the assistance they need to afford rent over the years ahead, paving the path to an entitlement for those who have served our country. The number of veterans experiencing homelessness declined by 11% between 2020 and 2022 and the United States permanently housed more than 40,000 veterans in 2022 alone. 

Delivering high-quality job training for veterans and their spouses. Roughly 200,000 service members transition from the military to civilian life each year. In the coming year, DOL’s Veteran Employment and Training Service (DOL-VETS) will implement its Employment Navigator Partnership Pilot, which has already provided one-on-one career assistance to 6,500 transitioning service members and military spouses. And, the Department of Defense will use the Military Spouse Career Accelerator Pilot program, a 12-week paid fellowship program, to expand employment opportunities for eligible military spouses.

In last year’s State of the Union, the President called for Congress to pass comprehensive legislation to address military toxic exposures. In August 2022, President Biden signed the bipartisan PACT Act into law, the most significant expansion of benefits and services for toxic exposed veterans in more than 30 years. Over the last year, the Administration also took critical action to help reduce veteran suicide, including transitioning the Veterans Crisis Line to “988, press 1.” The Administration also expanded access to reproductive health services for women veterans, supported more than 2.3 million children living with wounded, ill, or injured service members through the First Lady’s Joining Forces Initiative, and implemented key measures to protect veterans from predatory for-profit colleges.

Tackling the Mental Health Crisis
Forty percent of American adults report symptoms of anxiety and depression, and the percent of children and adolescents with anxiety and depression has risen nearly thirty percent. Last year, President Biden called for additional actions to advance his Mental Health Strategy across its three objectives: support Americans by creating healthy environments; strengthening system capacity, and connecting more Americans to care.  Over the last year, the Administration invested critical resources to provide mental health and substance use supports to Americans, including by expanding Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics, investing unprecedented resources in the 988 suicide prevention hotline, and taking steps to help address the harms of social media on youth. In the State of the Union, the President will say that we will continue that work by:

Creating healthy environments. Decades of research show that coordinating prevention and recovery support across settings can pay long-term dividends. The Biden-Harris Administration will:

  • Protect kids online. There is compelling and growing evidence that social media and other tech platforms can be harmful to mental health, wellbeing and development. Children, adolescents, and teens are especially vulnerable to such harm. More than one-third of American teens say they use a major social media platform “almost constantly” and that they spend “too much time on social media.” Far too often, the platforms do not enforce their own terms of service with respect to minors who use their products and services. Children are also subject to the platforms’ excessive data collection vacuum, which they use to deliver sensational and harmful content and troves of paid advertising. Children also suffer from bullying, harassment, abuse, and even sexual exploitation by other users online. And platforms use manipulative design techniques embedded in their products to promote addictive and compulsive use by young people in the name of “user engagement” – all to generate more revenue. The Administration will build on the Surgeon-General’s Youth Mental Health Advisory, the Department of Health and Human Services’ new Center of Excellence on Social Media and Mental Wellness, and the recent passage of the Children and Media Research Advancement Act. Platforms and other interactive digital service providers should be required to prioritize the privacy and wellbeing of young people above profit and revenue in their product design, including safety by design standards and practices for online platforms, products, and services. The President is calling for bipartisan support to ban targeted advertising online for children and young people and enact strong protections for their privacy, health and safety online.
     
  • Strengthen data privacy and platform transparency for all Americans: Big Tech companies collect huge amounts of data on the things we buy, the websites we visit, and the places we go.  There should be clear and strict limits on the ability to collect, use, transfer, and maintain our personal data, especially for sensitive data such as geolocation and health information, and the burden must fall on companies – not consumers – to minimize how much information they collect. We must also demand transparency about the algorithms companies use that far too often discriminate against Americans and sow division. The President has called for imposing much stronger transparency requirements on Big Tech platforms and is calling for bipartisan support to impose strong limits on targeted advertising and the personal data that companies collect on all Americans.
     
  • Support the mental health of the health workforce. Even before the pandemic, health workers were experiencing high levels of burnout, anxiety, and depression. Studies have shown that burnout have reached crisis levels, affecting up to 54 percent of nurses and physicians. This year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will launch a new campaign to provide a hub of mental health and resiliency resources to health care organizations in better supporting their workforce
     
  • Promote youth resilience. While rates of anxiety, depression, and self-harm among youth have been on the rise over the past several years, there are also remarkable stories of hope and resilience. To help foster innovation in promoting resilience, HHS will launch a new Children and Youth Resilience Prize Challenge, awarding a total of $750,000 in a new pilot program.  

Connecting more Americans to care.  On average, it takes 11 years after the onset of mental health symptoms for someone to seek treatment. We can do better. To mitigate these challenges, the Administration is working to make care more affordable and accessible across all types of health insurance, integrating mental health services into settings that are more familiar, such as schools, and expanding access to telehealth. To continue this progress, the Biden Administration will:

  • Improve school-based mental health. The Department of Education (ED) will announce more than $280 million in grants to increase the number of mental health care professionals in high-need districts and strengthen the school-based mental health profession pipeline. HHS and ED intend to issue guidance and propose a rule, respectively, to remove red tape for schools, making it easier for them to provide health care to students and more easily bill Medicaid funding for these critical services.
     
  • Strengthen parity. This spring, the Administration will propose new rules to ensure that insurance plans are not imposing inequitable barriers to care and mental health providers are being paid by health plans on par with other health care professionals.
     
  • Enhance crisis services. The Administration launched 988, the National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, in 2022, making it easier for individuals experiencing a behavioral health crisis to receive timely care. In the coming year, HHS will improve the capacity of the 988 Lifeline by investing in an expansion of the crisis care workforce; scaling mobile crisis intervention services; and developing additional guidance on best practices in crisis response. 
     
  • Expand access to telehealth. HHS will triple resources dedicated to promoting interstate license reciprocity for delivery of mental health services across state lines. VA will launch a new nationwide network of behavioral health clinicians to ensure timely access to evidence-based mental health services to veterans enrolled in VA health care. And, DoD will continue to expand the BRAVE program, a virtual behavioral health center providing services 24/7 to service members and their families located on federal installations across the globe.

Strengthening system capacity. Severe shortages in the behavioral health workforce are at the center of the mental health crisis. In addition to implementing legislation passed by Congress that creates 350 new slots to help train the next generation of mental health professionals, the Administration will:

  • Recruit diverse candidates to the mental health profession: HHS will increase funding to recruit future mental health professionals from Historically Black Colleges and Universities and to expand the Minority Fellowship Program.
     
  • Prioritize research: The Office of Science and Technology Policy and Domestic Policy Council released the White House Report on Mental Health Research Priorities, which identifies key areas where additional scientific research is needed to address our national mental health crisis. These priorities will ensure coordination across the federal agencies and private sector partners that support or perform mental health research.

Last year, after the President called for addressing the nation’s mental health crisis in the State of the Union, the Administration made important progress on expanding access to mental health services and treatment for substance use. President Biden signed into law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which makes unprecedented investment in youth mental health and supports school-based health services. The Administration also oversaw the successful transition to 988, the National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, investing over $500 million to strengthen 988 infrastructure and grow local crisis-center capacity – a twenty-fold increase over the prior administration. The Biden Administration also developed new resources to support the mental health and resilience of frontline workers, expanded Medicare coverage to include additional mental health and substance use disorder services, and encouraged states to better address youth mental health for those with Medicaid coverage.

Beating the Opioid and Overdose Epidemic by Accelerating the Crackdown on Fentanyl Trafficking and Public Health Efforts to Save Lives
Last year, President Biden announced his plan to beat the opioid epidemic as part of his Unity Agenda, because opioid use and trafficking affect families in red communities and blue communities and every community in between. Under President Biden’s leadership, overdose deaths and poisonings have decreased for five months in a row – but these deaths remain unacceptably high and are primarily caused by fentanyl. In the State of the Union, the President will announce key actions the Administration to tackle this issue head on, including by:  

Disrupting the trafficking, distribution, and sale of fentanyl. In just the last year Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has seized a historic 260,000 pounds of illicit drugs primarily at ports of entry on our border, including nearly 15,000 pounds of fentanyl. The Drug Enforcement Administration and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s (ONDCP) High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program were involved in the seizure of more than 26,000 pounds of fentanyl in FY22—including 50.6 million fentanyl-laced counterfeit prescription pills—along with over 6,500 pounds of heroin, 335,000 pounds of methamphetamine, and 370,000 pounds of cocaine. The HIDTA seizures denied $9 billion to drug traffickers, cutting into their profits. Further, through President Biden’s Executive Order on Imposing Sanctions on Foreign Persons Involved in the Global Illicit Drug Trade, the Department of the Treasury has imposed sanctions against dozens of individuals and entities involved in the illicit drug trade. To aggressively expand on this historic effort, the President will announce in the State of Union that his administration will:

  • Stop more fentanyl from getting into the U.S. at the Southwest Border Ports of Entry. By providing 123 new large-scale scanners at Land Points of Entry along the Southwest Border by Fiscal Year 2026, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will increase its inspection capacity from what has historically been around two percent of passenger vehicles and about 17 percent of cargo vehicles to 40 percent of passenger vehicles and 70 percent of cargo vehicles. These investments will crack down on a major avenue of fentanyl trafficking, securing our border and keeping dangerous drugs from reaching our country.
     
  • Stop more packages from being shipped into the United States with fentanyl and the materials used to make it. Drug traffickers use small, hard-to-track packages to ship opioids and other illicit materials into and within the United States, hidden among the millions of packages sent daily via commercial package delivery companies. That’s why CBP is working with these companies to have them voluntarily provide data that help law enforcement identify, inspect and intercept suspicious packages. Through these combined public-private efforts, CBP has increased seizures in commercial package delivery services’ warehouses from 42,000 pounds of illicit substances to more than 63,000 pounds in just the past two years. This year, CBP will expand these voluntary data sharing partnerships to capture more information – and, in turn, seize more packages.
     
  • Lead a sustained diplomatic push that will address fentanyl and its supply chain abroad.  The Administration will work with international partners to disrupt the global fentanyl production and supply chain, and call on others to join our efforts. We will focus on seizing chemical ingredients and fentanyl before it can reach our communities, and hold accountable the producers, traffickers, and facilitators of these deadly drugs. Many of these ingredients and materials originate outside our borders, and we will call on global partners to work with us and do more to disrupt the criminal elements within their countries who sell chemicals and tools for the production of counterfeit pills around the world.
     
  • Work with Congress to make permanent tough penalties on suppliers of fentanyl. The federal government regulates illicitly produced fentanyl analogues and related substances as Schedule I drugs, meaning they are subject to strict regulations and criminal penalties. But traffickers have found a loophole: they can easily alter the chemical structure of fentanyl—creating “fentanyl related substances” (FRS)—to evade regulation and enhance the drug’s impact. The DEA and Congress temporarily closed this loophole by making all FRS Schedule I. The Administration looks forward to working with Congress on its comprehensive proposal to permanently schedule all illicitly produced FRS into Schedule I. Traffickers of these deadly substances must face the penalties they deserve, no matter how they adjust their drugs.

Expanding access to evidence-based prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery. Over the last year, the Biden-Harris Administration took unprecedented steps to expand access to naloxone and other harm reduction interventions, such as permitting the use of $50 million for local public health departments to purchase naloxone, releasing guidance to make it easier for programs to obtain and distribute naloxone to at-risk populations, and prioritizing the review of over-the-counter naloxone applications. The Administration has also fundamentally changed addiction treatment across the country by working with Congress to remove barriers that prevented medical professionals from prescribing treatment for opioid use disorder and pursuing rulemaking to make permanent the COVID-19 era flexibilities that allowed for telehealth prescribing of buprenorphine and take-home methadone doses. To further connect people to life-saving help, the Biden-Harris Administration will:

  • Deliver more life-saving naloxone to communities hit hard by fentanyl. In late spring, HHS will take new steps to encourage and aide states in their efforts to use existing funding to purchase naloxone and distribute it in their communities. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) will provide enhanced technical assistance to states who have existing State Opioid Response funds, and will host peer learning forums, national policy academies, and convenings with organizations distributing naloxone beginning this spring.
     
  • Ensure every jail and prison across the nation can provide treatment for substance use disorder. Providing treatment while individuals are in jails and prisons, and continuing their treatment in their communities, has been proven to decrease overdose deaths, reduce crime, and increase employment during reentry. By this summer, the Federal Bureau of Prisons will ensure that each of their 122 facilities are equipped and trained to provide in-house medication-assisted treatment (MAT). Further, since more than 90 percent of individuals who are incarcerated are in state and local jails and prisons, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will provide guidance this spring allowing states to use Medicaid funds to provide health care services—including treatment for people with substance use disorder—to individuals in those facilities prior to their release.
     
  • Build on historic progress to drastically expand access to medications for opioid use disorder. The Biden-Harris Administration will further expand access to treatment by working with medical professionals to make prescribing proven treatments, including buprenorphine for opioid use disorder, part of routine health care delivery and ensure that manufacturers, wholesalers, and pharmacies are making medications available to everyone with a prescription. 
     
  • Launch a national campaign to educate young people on the dangers of fentanyl, and how naloxone saves lives. The Ad Council’s Real Deal on Fentanyl campaign has raised awareness about the dangers of fentanyl among youth. ONDCP and the Ad Council will build on this work by launching a naloxone education component of the campaign, which will reach the young people who are the fastest-growing age group to experience opioid overdose and poisoning by engaging popular social media platforms, college athletes and campus-based organizations. The campaign will also develop media to be shared on college campuses, in bars, public transportation stations, and retail locations to educate young people about the dangers of fentanyl and highlight naloxone resources.

During his first State of the Union address, President Biden called on Congress to get rid of outdated rules that stop doctors from prescribing treatments and provide law enforcement with the tools necessary to stop the flow of illicit drugs like fentanyl. In his State of the Union today, President Biden will highlight a bipartisan effort that delivered on his promise by passing the MAT Act, which removed the X-waiver as a barrier for health care providers prescribing life-saving medications for opioid use disorder at a time when fewer than 1 out of Americans can access the treatment they need. President Biden also signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act that included a two-year extension to classify fentanyl-related substances as Schedule I substances under the Controlled Substances Act, ensuring law enforcement has the tools they need to respond to the manufacture and trafficking of illicitly manufactured synthetic opioids driving the overdose epidemic.

Biden in SOTU Describes Comprehensive Strategy to Fight Crime, Reduce Gun Violence, Make Communities Safer

In his 2022 State of the Union Address, President Biden will discuss his comprehensive strategy to fight crime by investing in crime prevention and helping cities and towns hire additional community police officers to walk the streets, get to know their neighbors, and restore trust and safety. He’ll make clear that the answer is not to defund the police, it’s to put more police – with better training and more accountability – out to take back our streets and make our neighborhoods safer. He will describe the steps his Administration has taken – and will continue to take – to advance that accountability and rebuild trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com via msnbc.

There is simply not enough time or space for President Biden, in his State of the Union address, to provide all the details to the policies he has achieved or will implement. A major issue for the President has been addressing America’s epidemic of gun violence. Here are more details from the White House about President Biden’s historic actions to make our communities safer by reducing gun crime:

In his 2022 State of the Union Address, President Biden will discuss his comprehensive strategy to fight crime by investing in crime prevention and helping cities and towns hire additional community police officers to walk the streets, get to know their neighbors, and restore trust and safety.

He’ll make clear that the answer is not to defund the police, it’s to put more police – with better training and more accountability – out to take back our streets and make our neighborhoods safer. He will describe the steps his Administration has taken – and will continue to take – to advance that accountability and rebuild trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve.

Investing in community-based crime prevention and putting more cops on the beat in community policing are the two foundational policies that then-Senator Biden advanced when the United States faced record crime rates in the 1990s. At that time, he wrote a law to change how our country fights crime. We then experienced the sharpest drop in crime on record.


President Biden has spent his first year in office executing on his 
five-part comprehensive strategy make our communities safer and reduce the increase in gun crime we’ve seen since the beginning of the pandemic. It builds off the President’s long-held principles by getting tough on gun crime, and making community investments to prevent crime from happening in the first place:

  • Stems the flow of firearms used to commit violence, including through tougher federal law enforcement efforts against gun traffickers like our regional DOJ strike forces
  • Supports local law enforcement with federal tools and resources to address violent crime and put more cops on the beat, including through record funding in the Rescue Plan
  • Invests in evidence-based community violence interventions that are proven to stop disputes from spilling over into gun violence
  • Expands summer programming, employment opportunities, and other services and supports for teenagers and young adults
  • Helps formerly incarcerated individuals successfully reenter their communities and break the cycle of re-offending

At the same time, President Biden will use the State of the Union Address to reiterate his call for Congress to pass commonsense gun violence legislation that will save lives, and the President continues to urge Congress to act on his budget request of $200 million for community violence interventions and $300 million budget request to more than double the size of the Department of Justice’s COPS community policing hiring grant program.

In his 2022 State of the Union Address, President Biden will highlight how his Administration is executing on his comprehensive strategy to make our communities safer and reduce gun crime. The President’s comprehensive strategy advances two foundational policies – investing in crime prevention and helping cities and towns hire additional community police officers to walk the streets, get to know their neighbors, and restore trust and safety. These are the two foundational policies that then-Senator Biden advanced when the United States faced record crime rates in the 1990s. At that time, he wrote a law to change how our country fights crime. We then experienced the sharpest drop in crime on record.

President Biden recognizes the important role that law enforcement plays in stopping the interstate flow of guns used in crimes and taking off our streets the small number of individuals responsible for a disproportionate amount of gun crimes. To support state and local law enforcement, the U.S. Department of Justice has launched five gun trafficking strike forces and is cracking down on the “Iron Pipeline” – the illegal flow of guns sold in the south, transported up the East Coast, and found at crime scenes in cities from Baltimore to New York City. In addition, the Justice Department has directed every U.S. Attorney’s Office nationwide to increase resources dedicated to district specific violent crime strategies. The Justice Department is working with state and local law enforcement to address the most significant drivers of violence in each district, including to get repeat gun violence offenders off of our streets. New York City’s Gun Violence Strategic Partnership – which the President and Attorney General visited in February 2022 – is one model of the strategies Justice will help expand nationwide.   
 
The President is committed to serving as a strong partner for state and local law enforcement on the frontlines of the fight against crime. That’s why his American Rescue Plan gives cities and states historic levels of funding that they can use to put more cops on the beat for community policing. That’s also why the President continues to urge Congress to act on his $300 million budget request to more than double the size of the Department of Justice’s COPS community policing grant program.
 
Stronger law enforcement is made more effective when we make real investments in making our communities stronger and in addressing the causes of crime before it spills over into violence. That’s why President Biden’s comprehensive approach makes sure cities and states have the funding, training, and know-how they need to invest in proven tactics including street outreach by credible messengers, hospital-based intervention, and youth programming. And it’s bolstered by additional funding to create economic opportunity with job training, expand after-school activities, and provide stable housing and other stabilizing supports necessary to reduce recidivism and help formerly incarcerated individuals reenter their communities. The President has proposed a $5 billion investment in community violence interventions, including a $200 million investment in Fiscal Year 2022.

Taken together, President Biden’s gun crime reduction strategy steps up and focuses law enforcement efforts on violent offenders, stems the trafficking of illegal guns, and makes real investments in communities to intervene in and prevent gun violence. The President knows a complex and devastating challenge like the surge of gun crime we’ve seen over the last two years requires an ambitious, evidence-based response that uses every tool at our disposal, and that’s exactly what his plan does.
 
At the same time, President Biden will use the State of the Union Address to reiterate his call for Congress to pass commonsense gun violence prevention legislation that will save lives. This legislation, which fully aligns with the Second Amendment, includes requiring background checks for all gun sales, ensuring that no terrorist can buy a weapon in the United States, banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines, repealing gun manufacturers’ protection from liability, and banning ghost guns.
 
EXECUTING ON THE PRESIDENT’S COMPREHENSIVE GUN CRIME REDUCTION STRATEGY
 
President Biden spent his first year in office executing on his five-part comprehensive strategy make our communities safer and reduce gun crime, which:

  • Stems the flow of firearms used to commit violence,
  • Supports local law enforcement with federal tools and resources to address violent crime,
  • Invests in evidence-based community violence interventions,
  • Expands summer programming, employment opportunities, and other services and supports for teenagers and young adults, and
  • Helps formerly incarcerated individuals successfully reenter their communities.

 
In fact, during President Biden’s first year in office, the Biden-Harris Administration made more progress on executive actions to reduce gun violence than any other Administration has in its first year. Since taking office, President Biden has announced four packages of executive actions – an initial set of actions during a Rose Garden address in April, a comprehensive gun crime reduction strategysteps to promote safe storage of firearms, and additional Justice Department actions to enforce our gun laws and keep guns out of dangerous hands. These executive actions represent a whole-of-government approach, mobilizing the Departments of Justice, Veterans Affairs, Defense, Transportation, Health and Human Services, Labor, Homeland Security, Education, and Housing and Urban Development toward the shared goal of reducing gun violence. Highlights of these actions include three significant Justice Department rulemakings, agency guidance encouraging the use of hundreds of billions of American Rescue Plan dollars for gun violence reduction, and historic progress to advance community violence interventions.
 
Keeping Especially Dangerous Weapons and Repeat Shooters Off Our Streets
 
Helping state and local law enforcement take repeat shooters off our streets. The Attorney General has directed every U.S. Attorney’s Office nationwide to increase resources dedicated to district specific violent crime strategies. The Justice Department will work with state and local law enforcement to address the most significant drivers of violence in each district, including to get repeat gun violence offenders off of our streets.  New York City’s Gun Violence Strategic Partnership – which the President and Attorney General visited with Mayor Eric Adams in February 2022 – is one model of the strategies Justice will help expand nationwide.
 
Reining in the proliferation of ghost guns. In May 2021, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) issued a proposed rule to help stop the proliferation of “ghost guns,” which are unserialized, privately made firearms that are increasingly being recovered at crime scenes and have been identified by law enforcement officials as a serious threat to public safety. Today, criminals are buying kits containing nearly all of the components and directions for finishing a firearm within as little as 30 minutes and using these firearms to commit crimes. When these firearms turn up at crime scenes, they often cannot be traced by law enforcement due to the lack of a serial number – making it harder to catch the criminals behind shootings. ATF is reviewing public comments in response to the proposed rule, the next step in the regulatory process. In the meantime, the Justice Department launched a National Ghost Gun Enforcement Initiative, which will train a national cadre of prosecutors and disseminate investigation and prosecution tools to help bring cases against those who use ghost guns to commit crimes.   
 
Better regulating devices marketed as stabilizing braces. In June 2021, ATF issued a proposed rule to better regulate when devices marketed as firearm stabilizing braces effectively turn pistols into short-barreled rifles subject to the National Firearms Act. These braces can make a firearm more stable and accurate while still being concealable. ATF is reviewing public comments in response to the proposed rule, the next step in the regulatory process.
 
Keeping Guns out of the Wrong Hands
 
Helping states enact model extreme risk protection order (“red flag”) legislation. In June 2021, the Justice Department published model extreme risk protection order legislation to make it easier for states that want to adopt these red flag laws to do so. These laws allow family members or law enforcement to petition for a court order temporarily barring people in crisis from accessing firearms if they present a danger to themselves or others. 
 
Making progress on a report to give policymakers the information they need to help address firearms trafficking. In April 2021, the Justice Department announced that it will issue a new, comprehensive report on firearms commerce and trafficking and annual updates necessary to give policymakers the information they need to help address firearms trafficking today. To ensure the report is rigorous and helpful for policymakers, ATF has assembled a group of accomplished researchers and law enforcement subject matter experts. The academic team is currently undertaking such work as an independent analysis of ATF firearms commerce data to ensure accurate research that informs key policy findings and recommendations, and an analysis of technological developments over the past twenty years, including the use of polymers for the modular manufacture of firearms, the evolution of 3D printing of firearm components, and the pervasive availability of kits on the commercial market, facilitating the assembly of privately made firearms.
 
Established zero tolerance for rogue gun dealers that willfully violate the law. In June 2021, the Justice Department announced a new policy to underscore zero tolerance for willful violations of the law by federally licensed firearms dealers that put public safety at risk. Absent extraordinary circumstances that would need to be justified to the Director, ATF will seek to revoke the licenses of dealers the first time that they violate federal law by willfully 1) transferring a firearm to a prohibited person, 2) failing to run a required background check, 3) falsifying records, such as a firearms transaction form, 4) failing to respond to an ATF tracing request, or 5) refusing to permit ATF to conduct an inspection in violation of the law.
 
Launched multijurisdictional firearms trafficking strike forces. In July 2021, the Justice Department launched five new law enforcement strike forces focused on addressing significant firearms trafficking corridors that have diverted guns to New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, the Bay Area, and Washington, D.C. Those strike forces have already opened more than 540 investigations and taken custody of almost 3,100 crime guns. In February 2022, the Justice Department built on this commitment by announcing that it is cracking down on the “Iron Pipeline” – the illegal flow of guns sold in the south, transported up the East Coast, and found at crime scenes in cities from Baltimore to New York City – and other firearms trafficking by adding personnel and other resources to strengthen these strike forces.
 
Launched a public education campaign to encourage firearm safe storage. In September, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) launched a new paid media campaign featuring a series of public service announcements to reinforce the key message that a simple gun lock can save lives. These PSAs appeared across multiple platforms, including TV, social media, and streaming services. The campaign also targeted specific venues and events and involved a diverse array of channels, yielding more than 1.8 billion impressions across all platforms in less than 3 months. Viewers were directed to KeepItSecure.net for additional resources. This campaign will continue through 2022.
 
Launched an unprecedented focus on improving lethal means safety in the Military and Veteran Suicide Prevention Strategy. In November, the Departments of Defense (DOD), Health and Human Services (HHS), Homeland Security (DHS), Justice (DOJ), and Veterans Affairs (VA), as well as the Office of Emergency Medical Services within the Department of Transportation (DOT), announced that they will jointly create a plan for addressing lethal means safety awareness, education, training, and program evaluation. This coordinated campaign will build upon the VA launch in September and encourage safer storage practices, safety planning, and time and space behavioral measures for crisis response.
 
Making it easier for customers to obtain secure gun storage or safety devices. In January 2022, ATF issued a final rule clarifying firearms dealers’ statutory obligations to make available for purchase compatible secure gun storage or safety devices. Additionally, ATF has now issued a best practices guide to all federal firearms dealers to reiterate the important steps they are legally required to take, and additional steps they are encouraged to take, to keep their customers and communities safe. The guide includes materials for Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) to distribute to customers to help them better understand their legal obligations as firearms owners, as well as practical steps they can take to facilitate the safe storage of firearms and keep firearms out of the hands of people prohibited from possessing firearms.
 
Making Additional Progress to Reduce Community Violence
 
Many actions listed above will directly reduce community violence disproportionately affecting Black and brown communities. The Administration has also taken a number of steps focused solely on advancing community violence interventions, proven strategies for reducing gun violence in urban communities. As part of his Build Back Better agenda, President Biden proposed $5 billion in funding for the Department of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to invest in community violence interventions, evidence-based programs that are shown to help reduce violent crime. The President has proposed a $5 billion investment in community violence interventions, including a $200 million investment in Fiscal Year 2022.
 
But this Administration isn’t waiting on Congress to act; we have already invested in and expanded community violence interventions. These actions include:
 
Investing historic levels of existing federal funding in community violence interventions, including American Rescue Plan funding. The Biden Administration made certain American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding – $350 billion in state and local funding, and $122 billion in K-12 funding – available as unprecedented resources for CVI. Senior White House advisors also issued a memo to state and local officials outlining how these elected leaders not only can – but should – use ARP funds for CVI. Cities across the country, such as Seattle, Washington; Buffalo, New York; and Atlanta, Georgia – have responded to this call by committing and deploying ARP funds for CVI. In addition, five federal agencies made changes to 26 different programs to direct vital support to community violence intervention programs as quickly as possible. For example, the National Institutes of Health announced funding through its Firearm Injury and Mortality Prevention Research grants for four community violence programs – including a place-based strategy involving repurposing vacant lots in Detroit, an evaluation of READI Chicago, a burnout prevention program for violence interrupters in Chicago, and a hospital-based violence intervention program focused on youth in Virginia. The Justice Department announced $187 million for states and $85 million for localities through the Byrne JAG Program to support coordinated violence prevention and intervention; the Department explicitly encouraged the use of these funds for CVI. In September, the Department of Housing and Urban Development published a guide explaining to localities how Community Development Block Grants–a $3.4 billion annual funding stream–can be used to fund CVI strategies. The Department of Education released a letter to state school associations on how 21st Century Learning Centers funds and Student Support and Academic enrichment programs – both billion-dollar formula grant funding streams – can be used to fund CVI strategies in schools.
 
Making progress on state legislation to allow Medicaid to support community violence interventions. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services hosted a webinar and published information to educate states on how they can use Medicaid to reimburse certain community violence intervention programs, like Hospital-Based Violence Interventions. Last year, Connecticut and Illinois enacted legislation that allows Medicaid to reimburse providers for hospital-based violence prevention services – the first two states in the country to pursue this approach. According to reporting by USA Today, “[t]he idea has been in the works for years, advocates say, but not until the Biden administration signaled that states could – and should – use Medicaid dollars to support these violence prevention programs have state lawmakers stepped up.”
 
Using the White House’s convening power to support community violence interventions. In July 2021, senior White House staff established The White House Community Violence Intervention Collaborative, a 16-jurisdiction cohort of mayors, law enforcement, CVI experts, and philanthropic leaders committed to using American Rescue Plan funding or other public funding to increase investment in their community violence intervention infrastructure. The Collaborative is spending 18 months strengthening and scaling the jurisdictions’ community violence intervention infrastructure to reduce gun crime and promote public safety. National experts and federal agencies are providing training and technical assistance to help communities assess their existing public safety ecosystem, identify gaps, and build the capacity to expand programming that saves lives. White House staff continue to regularly work with the Collaborative.
 
Providing Law Enforcement with the Tools and Resources They need to Reduce Gun Violence
 
Deploying federal law enforcement to support local communities in addressing gun violence. As part of the Justice Department’s Comprehensive Strategy for Reducing Violent Crime, the Justice Department has supported law enforcement in local communities in addressing gun violence. In particular, the Justice Department has provided enforcement support from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), ATF, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and United States Marshals Service (USMS). In Fiscal Year 2021 alone, the USMS partnered with over 1,700 state and local agencies through district and regional task forces, apprehended more than 84,000 fugitives including more than 6,000 murder suspects, and seized more than 7,000 firearms during numerous violence reduction and counter gang operations. In 2021, ATF embedded with homicide and shooting investigation units in police and sheriff’s departments in more than 60 communities across the country, and expanded the reach of its National NIBIN Correlation and Training Center to an additional 35 sites. ATF now provides ballistic matching services and generates leads for more than 1,400 local police departments nationwide. In 2021, FBI partnered with nearly 2,000 state and local officers as part of its Violent Crime Task Forces and Safe Streets Task Forces, which together have confiscated more than 5,000 illegal firearms. Finally, DEA has strong partnerships with state and local law enforcement – 4,600 of whom served as DEA task force officers in 2021, disrupting the activity of some of the most violent drug trafficking organizations in the country. In 2021 alone, DEA was involved in the seizure of over 8,700 crime guns and opened 912 investigations with a nexus to violent crime.
 
Investing American Rescue Plan funding in community-oriented policing to reduce gun violence. The Biden Administration made historic levels of funding from the American Rescue Plan – $350 billion in state and local funding – available for law enforcement purposes such as hiring law enforcement or paying overtime where the funds are directly focused on advancing community policing strategies in those communities experiencing an increase in gun violence associated with the pandemic. Funds were also made available for additional enforcement efforts to reduce gun violence exacerbated by the pandemic, including prosecuting gun traffickers, rogue dealers, and other parties contributing to the supply of crime guns, as well as collaborative federal/state/local efforts to identify and address gun trafficking channels. Cities across the country, such as Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Syracuse, New York; and Mobile, Alabama, have responded to this call by committing and deploying ARP funds for advancing community-oriented policing. In addition, the Department of Justice continues to further the Administration’s support of community-oriented policing, including through the announcement of $139 million in grants to local law enforcement that will put over 1,000 police officers on the beat through the COPS Office Hiring Program. President Biden was instrumental in that program’s creation and has called for it to be doubled in size in his FY22 budget request.
 
Keeping Guns Out of the Hands of Domestic Abusers. In 2021, the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) expanded the Domestic Violence Homicide Prevention Firearms Technical Assistance Project (FTAP) to provide funding directly to those communities that participated in FTAP in the past, as well as choosing new communities to receive funding and technical assistance. FTAP helps communities identify challenges limiting a more robust implementation of domestic violence firearms laws in their jurisdictions and assists them in establishing a localized response that is best suited to their communities’ unique needs and characteristics.  OVW will award an estimated $6 million for up to 12 sites and $4 million for training and technical assistance on firearms and domestic violence.
 
Addressing the Root Causes of Gun Violence
 
Investing American Rescue Plan funding in public safety strategies such as summer jobs for young adults and substance abuse and mental health services. The Biden Administration has made historic levels of funding from the American Rescue Plan  – $350 billion in state and local funding and $122 billion in school funding  – available for purposes such as hiring nurses, counselors, and social workers; providing court personnel and operations costs to return to pre-pandemic operation levels; providing and expanding employment services, including summer jobs for young people and programs that provide training and work experience for formerly incarcerated persons and other individuals who live in communities most impacted by high levels of violence; providing and expanding summer education and enrichment programs, including summer camp; and scaling up wraparound services, such as housing, medical and mental health care, trauma-informed care, substance use disorder treatment, food assistance, and job placement services, for victims of crime, young people, formerly incarcerated persons, and individuals and households facing economic insecurity due to the pandemic. Cities and counties across the country, including St. Louis, Missouri; Tucson, Arizona; and Los Angeles County, California, have responded to this call by committing and deploying ARP funds for these purposes.
 
Providing meaningful work, education, or enrichment to keep young people safe and give them a path to success. For example, in June 2021, the Department of Labor awarded $89 million through its YouthBuild program to provide pre-apprenticeship opportunities for young people ages 16-24. The Department of Labor also awarded $20 million through its Workforce Pathways for Youth program to expand workforce development activities that serve youth ages 14-21 during “out of school” time (non-school hours).
 
Helping formerly incarcerated individuals successfully reenter their communities. Individuals who secure employment after release have much lower recidivism rates than those who do not. Good, stable jobs for the formerly incarcerated promote public safety and reduce violence. That is why the Administration is taking concrete steps to facilitate employment and associated services, such as housing assistance, for people who are formerly incarcerated. For example, in June 2021 the Department of Labor awarded $85.5 million to help formerly incarcerated adults and young people in 28 communities transition out of the criminal justice system and connect with quality jobs. The Department also awarded $25.5 million in Young Adult Reentry Partnership grants to organizations that will help provide education and training services to young adults between 18-24 who were previously involved with the justice system or who left high school before graduation. In addition, the President’s House-passed Build Back Better Act includes $1.5 billion for grants to help formerly incarcerated individuals successfully reenter their communities.
 
Supporting Survivors of Domestic Violence. Research shows that a male abusers’ access to a firearm increases the risk of intimate partner femicide by 1,000%. The COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis have increased the rates and risk for domestic violence nationwide.  For many women and children who experience abuse, home is not a safe place and there were increased barriers to accessing services and support. Last year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Family Violence Prevention and Services Program, awarded nearly $1 billion in American Rescue Plan (ARP) supplemental funding to support services for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault and their children.

What’s Behind President Biden’s Remarks on the Economy in his First State of the Union Address

President Joe Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris and Speaker Nancy Pelosi at his Speech to the Nation in 2021 © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com via msnbc.

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine likely to take up a large measure of President Joe Biden’s first State of the Union speech, he is unlikely to have enough time or space to detail his accomplishments and his agenda going forward. Here are more details from the White House about what the President will say about the economy:

President Biden ran for office with a new economic vision: to grow the economy from the bottom up and the middle out, not the top down. On Tuesday, the President will make a strong case that the Biden-Harris economic strategy is producing historic results, and lay out his plan to tackle the economic challenges ahead. He will underscore that during his first year in office, due in large part to the American Rescue Plan, entrepreneurship and business investment rebounded, the economy achieved its fastest job growth in American history, the fastest economic growth in nearly 40 years, and a faster recovery than every other advanced economy. And, he will emphasize that this progress is occurring amidst an historic shift from the old, outdated trickle-down approach to one that centers on workers, families, and small businesses.
 
During his first State of the Union Address, the President will also make clear that there is more work to do to rebuild the economy towards resilience, security, and sustainability. Too many families continue to feel the squeeze of higher costs. The President will make clear that price increases that become entrenched are pernicious, and eat away at the economic progress the country is making. The President will lay out his plan to lower costs for American families while continuing an historically strong economic recovery by:

  1. Making more things in America, strengthening our supply chains, and moving goods faster and cheaper;
     
  2. Reducing the cost of everyday expenses working families face and reducing the deficit;
     
  3. Promoting fair competition to lower prices, help small businesses thrive, and protect consumers; and
     
  4. Eliminating barriers to good-paying jobs for workers all across America.

 
Making more things in America, strengthening our supply chains, and moving goods faster and cheaper:
President Biden will make clear that he believes one of the best ways to lower costs over the long run is to increase the productive capacity of our economy—put simply, to make more things in America with more American workers contributing and earning a good living. He will describe the emerging manufacturing comeback, with American companies betting on America again because of the Administration’s commitment to domestic industrial revitalization and technological development. He will note that in just the last year, the economy added 375,000 manufacturing jobs and companies announced nearly $200 billion in investments for semiconductor, electric vehicle, battery, and critical mineral production and manufacturing in the United States. He will recount how Intel recently announced a new $20 billion factory outside of Columbus, Ohio that will create 7,000 construction jobs and another 3,000 permanent jobs – another sign of the strength of the American economy.
 
President Biden will also announce specific goals for implementation of his landmark Bipartisan Infrastructure law (BIL), a once-in-a-generation investment in our nation’s economic competitiveness that will strengthen supply chains and move goods to market faster and more efficiently, encouraging more companies to choose America. Over the next year:
 

  • States, territories, Tribes and local governments will start to improve 65,000 miles of roads and 1,500 bridges with federal funding, representing a 44% and 50% increase respectively from average annual improvement levels over the past six years.
     
  • The Federal Aviation Administration will be able to invest in over 600 airport infrastructure projects, including preserving 400 pavement projects on taxiways and runways.
     
  • Communities will invest in an estimated 15,000 new buses, ferries and subway cars, improving commutes for working Americans, families, and students across the country and reducing greenhouse emissions.
     
  • The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will advance over 500 projects across 52 states and territories to strengthen supply chains, improve waterways, and reduce flooding.
     
  • The Environmental Protection Agency will work with state and local governments to fund more than 400 new water projects from replacing lead service lines to improving drinking water systems.
     
  • States, Tribes, and other partners will use BIL funds to reclaim over 15,000 acres of abandoned mine lands, as well as launch new reclamation efforts that will ultimately address tens of thousands of additional acres across the country.
     
  • The Interior Department’s new Orphan Well Program will start work plugging, capping, and remediating over 8,000 abandoned oil & gas well sites in communities across the country.
     
  • The Interior Department will increase its work to reduce the risk of wildfires to communities by more than 30 percent – removing over 300,000 acres of burnable fuels in the places where communities and wildlands meet – as well as the start of work to reduce wildfire risk on an additional 250,000 acres across the country.
     
  • The Department of Energy will take steps to launch a first-of-its kind $140 million demonstration facility to extract and separate rare earth elements and other critical minerals from coal ash, mine tailings, acid drainage, and other legacy fossil fuel waste to sustainably produce materials key to next-generation clean energy technologies.
     
  • The Department of Energy will make available nearly $3 billion to bolster domestic manufacturing of advanced batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage.
     

To build on these investments and spur more private-sector investment in the United States, the President will also call on Congress to send him bipartisan competitiveness legislation like the COMPETES and USICA bills that have passed the House and the Senate to invest in innovation, manufacturing, and economic development capacity across all of America so America can outcompete China and the rest of the world in the industries of the future.
 
Reducing the cost of everyday expenses working families face:
President Biden will call on Congress to send him legislation that lowers costs of everyday expenses working families face and lowers the deficit by rewarding work, not wealth. He will lay out specific, practical measures that would reduce costs for families right now, including prescription drug costs and health care premiums, child care and pre-k costs, and energy costs. He will point to the other ideas he has proposed on areas ranging from housing to care for seniors and people with disabilities to higher education affordability to direct tax relief for families. These efforts build on the support provided in the American Rescue Plan that has helped reduce the cost of health care, helped more than 5000 universities and community colleges make higher education more affordable, made work pay better for low-income workers through an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, and provided historic middle class tax relief for tens of millions of working families through an expanded Child Tax Credit.
 
The President will make clear that we can lower costs while lowering the deficit by rewarding work, not wealth. He will outline proposals to make sure corporations and the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share, while making clear that no one making under $400,000 a year should see their taxes increased.
 
The President will call on Congress to send him a bill that lowers costs and lowers the deficit without delay. American families need relief from higher costs, and they need it now.

Promoting fair competition to lower prices, help small businesses thrive, and protect consumers:
President Biden will explain that we can also lower costs by promoting fair competition in the U.S. economy. The Administration has taken decisive actions in the first year to stop the trend of corporate consolidation, increase competition, and deliver concrete benefits to America’s consumers, workers, farmers, and small businesses. He will also announce new actions the Biden-Harris Administration is taking this year to tackle some of the most pressing competition and consumer protection problems across our economy. Specifically, he will announce new steps to:
 

  • Lower consumer prices and level the playing field for American businesses in ocean shipping. The President will explain that most traded goods—everything from the housewares you buy online to the agricultural products that American farmers market overseas—are transported by oceangoing vessels. However, the ocean shipping industry is now dominated by just a small number of giant, foreign-owned companies. Three global alliances—groups of ocean carriers that work together—now control 80% of global container ship capacity and 95% on the critical East-West trade lines. And, since the beginning of the pandemic, these carriers have been increasing shipping costs through higher rates and fees. The President will note that the foreign carriers are now seeing record profits, while prices for American consumers and businesses have risen. To combat this problem, the President will announce steps to lower consumer prices and level the playing field for American businesses in ocean shipping, including launching a new Federal Maritime Commission and Department of Justice initiative to promote competition in the ocean freight transportation system. He will also note that the Federal Maritime Commission is ramping up its oversight of the global shipping industry to address complaints about the unfair fees the carriers charge to American businesses. Read the full Biden-Harris Plan to Lower Consumer Prices and Level the Playing Field in Ocean Shipping here.
     
  • Protect seniors and other nursing home residents by cracking down on unsafe nursing homes. The President will explain that while the federal government spends tens of billions of taxpayer dollars on nursing homes annually, these federal funds too often flow to nursing homes with bad track records and dangerous conditions. He will explain that 200,000 residents and staff in nursing homes have died from COVID-19, representing nearly 23% of all COVID-19 deaths in the United States. He will also stress that despite well-documented, widespread health and safety violations, there has been little or no accountability. To protect seniors and crack down on unsafe nursing homes, President Biden will call on Congress to provide nearly $500 million to CMS Survey and Certification, a 24% increase, to support health and safety inspections at nursing homes. He will also announce that the Biden-Harris Administration will, among other new initiatives, establish a new minimum staffing ratio to protect residents, expand penalties for poor performing nursing homes and beef up scrutiny, improve transparency and Americans’ ability to comparison shop for the best home, strengthen value-based payment to ensure taxpayers pay for quality care, and continue to provide COVID-19 testing and vaccinations at nursing homes across the country. Read the full Biden-Harris Plan to Protect Seniors by Cracking Down on Unsafe Nursing Homes here.

Eliminating barriers to good-paying jobs for workers all across America:
President Biden will reflect on one of the strongest labor market recoveries in American history. Specifically, the President will note that during his first year in office, the economy added more than 6.6 million jobs; the unemployment rate fell at its fastest pace on record; the number of number of workers filing for unemployment insurance declined by more than 70 percent; and millions of Americans have entered and reentered the labor force, with the largest increase in the labor force participation rate in more than 25 years. He will highlight the important role that the American Rescue Plan played in positioning employers to hire and workers to rejoin the labor force and find higher quality jobs. Earlier this year, he directed the Secretary of Labor to work with states to reinstate work search requirements for unemployment insurance recipients.

To further our economic recovery and increase the productive capacity of our economy, the President will announce his Administration’s plan to ensure everyone who wants to work should have the opportunity to find a high-quality job. Specifically, he will express his support for:
 

  • Enacting the Protecting the Right to Organize Act. President Biden will express his firm belief that every worker in every state must have a free and fair choice to organize or join a union, and the right to bargain collectively with their employer, without fear of intimidation, coercion, threats, and anti-union propaganda. He will reiterate that the middle class built America and unions built the middle class. And, he will emphasize that empowering workers is central to the Biden-Harris strategy to grow our economy from the bottom up and the middle out. The President will call on Congress to pass the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, ensuring that more private-sector workers and many more public-sector workers nationwide have a genuine right to organize and bargain collectively.
     
  • Expanding skills-based hiring and increasing access to registered apprenticeships and training. President Biden will reiterate his commitment to creating pathways to the middle class for all Americans. He will stress that millions of Americans without a college degree are needlessly disadvantaged in the pursuit of good jobs, even when they have the skills and knowledge employers need. To support skills-based hiring, President Biden will announce that his Administration will explore using federal and procurement dollars to by hire based on skills rather than educational qualifications alone, , including through boosting hiring of people from Registered Apprenticeships and labor-management partnership training programs. Additionally, the Administration remains committed to strengthening the pipeline for more underserved communities to access these opportunities. As an example, the Administration has supported and increased access to quality trucking jobs by expanding Registered Apprenticeship programs for drivers; and developing more seamless paths for veterans and underrepresented communities, such as women, to access good driving jobs. He will state that the Administration is supporting and challenging employers to move towards skill-based hiring, including through a new budget proposal to invest in skills-based hiring research tools and technical assistance. This effort builds on the American Rescue Plan’s critical workforce investments in the past year – with more than half of states already committing Fiscal Recovery Funds to training and apprenticeships and efforts to hire and retain critical workers – and catalyzing investments in place-based regional workforce strategies through the Commerce Department’s Good Jobs Challenge.
  • Expanding programs in high-demand fields at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs). President Biden will explain that research has found that HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs are vital to helping underrepresented students achieve economic mobility, including in STEM fields. However, he will also stress that these institutions have significantly fewer resources than other top colleges and universities, undermining their ability to grow and support more students. To address this persistent problem, and building on the progress made by the American Rescue Plan providing the largest investment through the Department of Education ever in these institutions, the President will call on Congress to expand existing institutional aid grants to HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs, which can be used by these institutions to strengthen their academic, administrative, and fiscal capabilities, including by creating or expanding educational programs in high-demand fields (e.g., STEM, computer sciences, nursing, and allied health).
     
  • Providing up to more than $2,000 in additional assistance to low-income students by increasing the Pell Grant award. President Biden will note that broad access to education beyond high school is increasingly important for economic growth and competitiveness in the 21st century, but also remind us that higher education has become unaffordable for too many families. Over 6 million students depend on Pell Grants to finance their education, yet the amount of money in these grants has not kept up with the rising cost of college and DREAMers still do not have access. During his State of the Union Address, President Biden will call on Congress to increase the maximum Pell Grant award by more than $2,000.
     
  • Supporting paycheck fairness. President Biden will note that women in the U.S. who work full-time, year-round are paid only 83 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts, on average. He will also express his belief that ensuring equal pay is essential to advancing America’s values of fairness and equity as well as our economic strength here at home and our competitiveness abroad. President Biden will use his State of the Union Address as an opportunity to call on Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, which will take important steps towards the goal of ending pay discrimination.
     
  • Raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour. President Biden will recount that throughout the pandemic, millions of American workers have put their lives on the line to keep their communities and country functioning, including the 40 percent of frontline workers who are people of color. The President will express his belief that hard-working Americans deserve sufficient wages to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads, without having to work multiple jobs. The President already issued executive actions to ensure 370,000 federal employees and employees of federal contractors are paid a minimum of $15 per hour – because investing in workers also makes employers, including the government, work better and faster. The President will call on Congress to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour, and end the tipped minimum wage and sub-minimum wage for people with disabilities so that workers across the country can have a little breathing room and provide opportunity for their families.
     
  • Creating a national comprehensive paid family and medical leave program. President Biden will stress that nearly four of five private sector workers – and 90 percent of the lowest wage workers – have no access to paid family leave, which is a critical input for economic growth and competitiveness in the 21st century. He will call on Congress to pass comprehensive paid family and medical leave legislation so millions of American workers can take time to bond with a new child, care for a seriously ill loved one or heal from their own serious illness.