3/10/24

By Aditi Jha

President Biden gave the State of the Union address on Thursday evening. This speech was partially intended to fight back against the widely held disdain for his age. Right after the speech, Rep. Jerry Nadler told Biden, "Nobody is going to talk about cognitive impairment now." and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on CNN, "Hard for anyone at any age to give that performance." Big topics in the speech included gun control and immigration. "I'm demanding a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Pass universal background checks," he said. He reminded the audience of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention that he created and the gun safety law that he signed. As for immigration, he talked about the bipartisan border security bill that he signed and his efforts to improve the system. "Unlike my predecessor, on my first day in office, I introduced a comprehensive bill to fix our immigration system," Biden said. "It has all these and more: secure the border, provide a pathway to citizenship for DREAMers ... we have a simple choice: we can fight about fixing the border or we can fix it. I'm ready to fix it." He mentioned the economy, arguing that inflation will continue to go down and unemployment will still stay low. Alabama Senator Katie Britt, the youngest female senator at 42, got the chance to give the Republican response, which mostly discussed the economy, the border, crime, and foreign policy. She depicted Biden as a "dithering and diminished leader" and was met with criticism due to her allegedly robotic tone. She brought up her kids and her role as a mother, speaking from her home kitchen table about how "President Biden just doesn't get ... what real families are facing around kitchen tables just like this one." Senator Mitch McConnell said that "by delivering the message from her house, she was able to identify the problems that everyday families have in trying to put food on the table, trying to afford gasoline, and all the rest."

A partial shutdown, which would've happened as a result of a lack of congressional budget approval, was stopped by U.S. senators hours before the midnight deadline. The $460 billion spending package was voted into law 75-22 and will extend until the end of the fiscal year (September 30th). Senator Chuck Schumer said that the package symbolizes a big step forward in bipartisanship. "To folks who worry that divided government means nothing ever gets done, this bipartisan package says otherwise: it helps parents and veterans and firefighters and farmers and school cafeterias and more," he said in a statement. It was supposed to have been put into place by October 1st, but this year especially, Congress has been struggling to agree. If the government was shut down, it would impact welfare checks, the publishing of national economic data, the operation of federal courts, national parts, and museums. 

That's the news for today. Stay safe!