Biden’s State of the Union speech to the target house GOP with a focus on commonalities

President Biden returns to the White House from Camp David

President Biden speaks with reporters on the South Lawn after returning to the White House on Marine One February 6, 2023 in Washington, DC. Credit – Anna Moneymaker – Getty Images

Prescription drug costs. The fentanyl crisis. Veteran Services.

As he delivers his State of the Union address Tuesday night, his first as leader of a divided government, President Biden will announce a “unity agenda” that will focus on areas he believes he can find common ground with House Republicans , even when they do raise a number of divisive voices in leadership roles, some refusing to admit he was legitimately elected.

It’s a dress rehearsal for a likely re-election campaign as he attempts to once again convince American voters that his seasoned leadership and willingness to work across the aisle make him the right leader in these divisive times. Biden hopes to build on his success over the past two years by getting some Republicans to commit to greater investment in infrastructure, boosting US engineered manufacturing and a modest gun safety law.

“To my Republican friends, if we could work together in the last Congress, there’s no reason we can’t work together in this new Congress,” Biden will say, according to portions of the speech released by the White House late Tuesday. “People sent us a clear message. Fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict gets us nowhere.”

However, these bipartisan gains were made when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. Hopes for similar successes in the future can seem naïve and even ridiculous, especially considering how much indebtedness the Speaker of the Republican House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, has to his faction’s right-wing members, many of whom have only endorsed his leadership after they dragged out the nomination battle by five controversial days and 15 rounds of voting. Concessions McCarthy made included making it easier for his own party to oust him and giving some right-wing members more control over which bills are voted on. All of this adds to the difficulty of getting McCarthy to compromise with the Democrats and bring his own caucus.

“Sounds great, doesn’t it? Yeah, good luck,” says Paul Stob, the chair of the American Studies program at Vanderbilt University, of Biden’s efforts to further his goal of pushing bipartisan legislation. “A pipe dream may be too strong a word, but it is certainly a very difficult task. Biden will propose a lot in terms of unity and working with Republicans in hopes he can get a little,” Stob says.

There remain major differences between Republicans and Congressional Democrats over access to abortion, how to deal with immigrants fleeing violence and hardship in their home countries who want to live and work in the United States, how much corporations are taxed, and what the deficit is should be lowered.

The next few months are likely to be marked by the raising of the debt ceiling before the government runs out of money in June. Some House Republicans want cuts to programs like Medicare and Social Security in exchange for their support. Biden says he will not negotiate an increase in the limit because raising the limit only allows the US to pay bills that Congress has already approved and a default in payments calls into question the good faith and creditworthiness of the United States and making borrowing more expensive could send shock waves through the global economy.

McCarthy and Biden met in the Oval Office last week, their first face-to-face meeting since McCarthy became spokesman. Speaking to reporters outside the West Wing doors after the meeting, McCarthy said he and Biden “promised we would continue the conversation” and “at the end of the day we can find common ground.”

Continue reading: Why Joe Biden, who loves deals, isn’t offering Kevin McCarthy one

The two continue to strike a more forgiving tone. Two days later, at a Democratic National Committee finance meeting in a ballroom at a Sheraton in downtown Philadelphia, Biden made it clear that not all Republicans are “MAGA Republicans,” who disputed the results of the 2020 election and are associated with former President Donald Trump obligated. “There are a lot of good Republicans left,” Biden said.

And McCarthy said Monday he has no plans to repeat the president-speaker relationship that was showcased during former President Donald Trump’s most recent State of the Union, when Trump refused to accept the outstretched hand of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi shake, and they publicly tore up a copy of his speech.

“I respect the other side,” McCarthy said a video He posted on social media. “I can disagree with politics.”

In addition to finding a way through the looming debt-ceiling crisis, White House officials believe they may be able to find Republican votes for efforts to lower the cost of some prescription drugs, improve care for veterans, invest in… expand cancer research and reduce deaths from opioids.

Biden wants Republicans to help him commit more resources to stopping deadly fentanyl drug overdoses, which have been on the rise in recent years. Biden’s director of national drug control policy, Dr. Rahul Gupta told reporters Tuesday that reducing fentanyl overdoses “is not a red state problem or a blue state problem. This is America’s problem.” Biden’s speech will outline ways the US can better curb smuggling by using advanced technology to screen more shipments passing through border checkpoints and more packages sent from overseas. He is also expected to announce the launch of a more robust national campaign with the non-profit Ad Council to warn of the dangers posed by fentanyl and fentanyl-laced drugs.

The president is also likely to promote some ideas that will resonate immediately with Republicans, including raising taxes on the wealthy, imposing a minimum corporate tax rate and banning assault weapons.

The State of the Union follows a blockbuster jobs report that shows the US added half a million jobs in January. Yet Biden’s speech comes as his approval ratings remain hovering in the low 40s. An ABC News/Washington Post poll released Sunday found that four in 10 Americans say they have been worse off financially since Biden took office. The same poll found that 62% of Americans would be disappointed or upset if Biden won a second term.

Biden doesn’t view these moments as a time to reinvent himself or take a new direction, according to his aides. In the State of the Union, Biden states: “This is where we can come together. Here’s what we’ll fight for, here’s who we’re fighting for. And all of that is based on what he said when he wanted to run and who he has been his entire life,” said a White House official who advised Biden on the speech.

While Biden has made it clear he won’t negotiate Social Security or Medicare cuts or the US debt default, he wants to find ways to work with Republicans, in part to show Americans their elected officials can still work together, to address your problems. This is part of Biden’s larger project to restore American confidence in the democratic process. “He showed that we can actually come together and do things, that we can find common ground and do things that the American people want,” Kate Bedingfield, the White House communications director, told CNN Monday night. “That’s what they want to see from their elected officials.” Biden’s speech Tuesday night will be his opening argument on how he and House Republicans can achieve this.

Source