On Feb. 7, President Joe Biden will address Congress with the
State of the Union
, as the Constitution dictates. He ought to take an honest look at the country and the many problems it faces — problems his administration has either created or worsened.
Over the next week, the Washington Examiner will report on a few of the important problems plaguing the country and how they are affecting the public every day.
The most glaring crisis our country faces today is
at the southern border
, where hundreds of thousands of immigrants are crossing into the country illegally every month, overwhelming immigration officials and border towns. Just last week, border agents confirmed that more than 1.2 million immigrants evaded immigration enforcement completely. Who knows how many of these immigrants were on the terror watch list, as at least 70,000 apprehended immigrants have been, or were part of the
drug cartels
flooding our cities with fentanyl.
The reason the border crisis angers the public so deeply — indeed, it is almost always listed as a top concern for voters — is that it makes clear how little respect Biden’s administration has for America’s sovereignty. The Biden administration refuses to enforce the law on this issue and even encourages others to break it by refusing to hand down consequences to violators. In doing so, Biden has made a mockery of the rule of law, and there is no question that other countries around the world, including our enemies, have taken notice.
The economy is also worse off today than it was this time last year. Though
inflation
rates have begun to subside slightly, they are still abnormally high, and none of the earlier inflation is being undone. Biden inherited an economy in which real wages were rising and inflation stood at 1.4%. In just 18 months, he managed to push inflation up to 9%, bringing the cost of groceries, gas, and other everyday expenses up with him. Even now that inflation is down to 6.5%, core consumer prices have continued to increase every month, with the effect that the average worker has suffered a 5.5% pay cut — in other words, a $3,000 reduction in annual income this past year.
Biden will likely ignore these economic realities and tout the low unemployment rate and the passage of his legislative agenda, the Inflation Reduction Act. Neither is worth celebrating. There is a fair argument to be made that the
unemployment
rate continues to drop only because there are fewer people willing to work. The latest data, for example, show there are 10 million open jobs in the United States right now but only 5.7 million unemployed workers. This has to come to a head eventually.
Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, another example of his reckless spending, has worsened the economy’s inflationary troubles. And any benefit the bill might have offered the economy was almost immediately destroyed by his illegal effort to forgive billions of dollars in
student loan debt
.
There are several other problems Biden should address, including rising
crime
rates and sagging optimism about the country’s future. If he were wise, he would not only address these issues before Congress next week, but he would lay out a plan for how to deal with them. But that would require not just introspection and vision but humility. This president lacks all three.
The U.S. desperately needs a change of direction. But if the last year is any indication of how Biden plans to run things, expect 2023 to be yet another year of a lesser America with an ailing economy, less certain security, and a more divided public.
