Biden’s leadership on Russia is a bright spot in a gloomy State of

On Mar 1, 2022

U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on Biden administration efforts to lower health care costs during a visit to Germanna Community College in Culpepper, Virginia, U.S., February 10, 2022.

Leah Millis | Reuters

WASHINGTON — When President Joe Biden delivers his first official State of the Union address on Tuesday evening, the unified global response to Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine is poised to overshadow the other major theme of the speech: Biden’s economic agenda.

Biden and his team spent months working on the economic agenda portion of the hour-long speech, according to White House aides. The result is a “strong case” for Biden to make about how well the U.S. economy has rebounded in the past year, they said.

By contrast, aides had just days to pull together his comments on Russia and Ukraine — a war that is changing by the minute.

If this were any other year, a presidential speech on the nationwide economic recovery and his future domestic agenda would be more likely to resonate with American voters than a speech about a foreign war thousands of miles away.

But this year is different.

Voters still don’t see the economic recovery

Biden will be addressing an electorate that polls show consistently feels disconnected from the economic recovery that Biden has overseen in his first year in office.

The numbers are clear: Since Biden took office last January, the U.S. economy has achieved the fastest job growth on record and the fastest economic growth in nearly 40 years.

A Washington Post ABC poll released last week found that 75% of Americans believed the economy is in either “poor” or “not so good” shape.

This disconnect is not new. For months, Biden has insisted — and the numbers have shown — that America is undergoing a period of historic economic growth.

But this has nonetheless failed to resonate with voters, a majority of whom feel pessimistic about the economy and frustrated at high inflation.

Biden’s speech will acknowledge these anxieties on Tuesday, said a White House official. But he will not be unveiling any novel approaches to the problem.

Instead, Biden will “call on Congress” to pass various elements of his “Build Back Better” bill, but won’t refer to the doomed bill by name.

Biden’s hope of passing the once-in-a-generation social safety net expansion collided late last year with West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s alarm over rising inflation. Manchin cited inflation as the reason why he pulled his support for the bill after it had already passed the House.

Biden will “call on Congress” at least 10 times in Tuesday’s address to pass various proposals, according to a White House fact sheet on the speech. They include everything from increased funding for Pell grants to a $15 minimum wage to paid family leave.

Still, the fact that Biden is resorting to public pressure on the Democratically controlled Senate and House, asking them to take action, only serves to highlight the hurdles Biden faces to…