Vinyl Institute Comments on Biden’s Joint Address to Congress

April 29, 2021

President Biden gave his first address to a joint session of Congress Wednesday night, on the eve of his 100th day of office. He delivered an optimistic outlook of the nation as he ticked through a list of his top priorities and accomplishments in the first 100 days. He stated that “America is rising anew” as he described the country emerging from a deadly pandemic and his desire to rebuild the U.S economy, including making fundamental changes in U.S. policy to allow the country to compete with global competitors.

President Biden unveiled his sweeping $1.8 trillion “American Families Plan,” which includes significant expansions of government spending on education, children, paid family leave, and a new and expanded social safety net while also insisting on the necessity for his $2.3 trillion “American Jobs Plan.”

President Biden would finance most of his agenda through tax increases on upper-income households making more than $400,000 and increased Internal Revenue Service (IRS) enforcement of tax compliance. The plan would also increase the top marginal income tax rate from 37% to 39.6% and raise the capital gains tax rate from 20% to 39.6%, making unearned income on par with earned income.

He pitched his infrastructure plans as a “once in a generation investment in America” to create jobs and upgrade and modernize the infrastructure needed to stay healthy and competitive. He specifically pointed to the importance of water infrastructure as a part of that plan: “Up to 10 million homes in America and more than 400,000 schools and childcare centers have pipes with lead in them, including drinking water, a clear and present danger to our children’s health. The American Jobs Plan creates jobs replacing 100% of the nation’s lead pipes and service lines so every American can drink clean water.”  President Biden also discussed the importance of having a clean, reliable, and modern power grid so that catastrophic failures and tragic consequences, like those in Texas this past February, don’t happen in the future.

There were some efforts to appeal to Republicans, and there were few times that Republicans clapped along with Democrats such as when he implored Congress to pass an array of proposals from police reform to healthcare to gun violence to immigration reform. Biden repeatedly mentioned how his bold agenda would create millions of “good-paying jobs” for all Americans, noting that most of the infrastructure jobs will be blue-collar jobs incapable of being outsourced. He advocated for the country to “buy American” and repeatedly mentioned the need for America to come together to remain competitive with China while painting Chinese President Xi Jinping a foe.

These issues did win him some approval from Republicans, such as when he received applause saying there was “simply no reason why the blades for wind turbines can’t be built in Pittsburgh instead of Beijing.” Notably, his comments on “proving democracy is durable and strong” to countries abroad and working with Europe and NATO to defending U.S. interest, industries, and workers received robust applause from both sides.

On the other side of the aisle, Democrats were clearly pleased with Biden’s accomplishments the past 100 days and the ambitious agenda he is laying before Congress as he seizes a “once-in-a-century opportunity” for the U.S. to improve the economy and lives of working people. Progressive Democrats praised the bold transformative direction President Biden is taking, noting his big government push.  Republicans pushed back against Biden’s “socialist” agenda and widely panned the enormous $6 trillion price tag that the administration is proposing, despite its razor thin majorities in Congress. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) went so far as to say President Biden was using his presidency as a Washington power grab and countered that the proposals would lower the average American worker’s wages in the official GOP response the Biden’s address.

In the end, it will be a test whether Biden is sincere in his quest for bipartisanship, or, as with the COVID Relief bill passed this year, his entreats are simply “window dressing” as Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) has referred to them. If, as expected, Democrats choose the reconciliation path to enact their grand agenda, they will have to reconcile the significant differences between the moderates and the progressives in terms of size and cost of all these programs.