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President Biden delivered his annual State of the Union tackle on Tuesday. The next is a transcript of his remarks, as launched by the White Home.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Madam Speaker, Madam Vice President, our First Girl and Second Gentleman. Members of Congress and the Cupboard. Justices of the Supreme Court docket. My fellow Individuals.
Final yr COVID-19 stored us aside. This yr we’re lastly collectively once more.
Tonight, we meet as Democrats Republicans and Independents. However most significantly as Individuals.
With an obligation to at least one one other to the American folks to the Structure.
And with an unwavering resolve that freedom will at all times conquer tyranny.
Six days in the past, Russia’s Vladimir Putin sought to shake the foundations of the free world considering he might make it bend to his menacing methods. However he badly miscalculated.
He thought he might roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. As a substitute he met a wall of power he by no means imagined.
He met the Ukrainian folks.
From President Zelenskyy to each Ukrainian, their fearlessness, their braveness, their willpower, evokes the world.
Teams of residents blocking tanks with their our bodies. Everybody from college students to retirees lecturers turned troopers defending their homeland.
On this wrestle as President Zelenskyy mentioned in his speech to the European Parliament “Gentle will win over darkness.” The Ukrainian Ambassador to the US is right here tonight.
Let every of us right here tonight on this Chamber ship an unmistakable sign to Ukraine and to the world.
Please rise in case you are in a position and present that, Sure, we the US of America stand with the Ukrainian folks.
All through our historical past we’ve realized this lesson when dictators don’t pay a worth for his or her aggression they trigger extra chaos.
They maintain shifting.
And the prices and the threats to America and the world maintain rising.
That’s why the NATO Alliance was created to safe peace and stability in Europe after World Warfare 2.
The USA is a member together with 29 different nations.
It issues. American diplomacy issues. American resolve issues.
Putin’s newest assault on Ukraine was premeditated and unprovoked.
He rejected repeated efforts at diplomacy.
He thought the West and NATO wouldn’t reply. And he thought he might divide us at dwelling. Putin was fallacious. We have been prepared. Here’s what we did.
We ready extensively and punctiliously.
We spent months constructing a coalition of different freedom-loving nations from Europe and the Americas to Asia and Africa to confront Putin.
I spent numerous hours unifying our European allies. We shared with the world upfront what we knew Putin was planning and exactly how he would attempt to falsely justify his aggression.
We countered Russia’s lies with reality.
And now that he has acted the free world is holding him accountable.
Together with twenty-seven members of the European Union together with France, Germany, Italy, in addition to nations like the UK, Canada, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and plenty of others, even Switzerland.
We’re inflicting ache on Russia and supporting the folks of Ukraine. Putin is now remoted from the world greater than ever.
Along with our allies –we’re proper now implementing highly effective financial sanctions.
We’re slicing off Russia’s largest banks from the worldwide monetary system.
Stopping Russia’s central financial institution from defending the Russian Ruble making Putin’s $630 Billion “struggle fund” nugatory.
We’re choking off Russia’s entry to expertise that can sap its financial power and weaken its army for years to come back.
Tonight I say to the Russian oligarchs and corrupt leaders who’ve bilked billions of {dollars} off this violent regime no extra.
The U.S. Division of Justice is assembling a devoted job pressure to go after the crimes of Russian oligarchs.
We’re becoming a member of with our European allies to search out and seize their yachts their luxurious flats their personal jets. We’re coming in your ill-begotten good points.
And tonight I’m saying that we are going to be a part of our allies in closing off American air house to all Russian flights, additional isolating Russia and including an extra squeeze on their financial system. He has no concept what’s coming.
The Ruble has misplaced 30% of its worth.
The Russian inventory market has misplaced 40% of its worth and buying and selling stays suspended. The Russian financial system is reeling, and Putin alone is in charge.
Along with our allies, we’re offering help to the Ukrainians of their struggle for freedom. Navy help. Financial help. Humanitarian help.
We’re giving greater than $1 billion in direct help to Ukraine, and can proceed to help the Ukrainian folks as they defend their nation and assist ease their struggling.
however let me be clear: our forces usually are not engaged and won’t have interaction in battle with Russian forces in Ukraine.
Our forces usually are not going to Europe to struggle in Ukraine, however to defend our NATO Allies – within the occasion that Putin decides to maintain shifting west.
For that goal we’ve mobilized American floor forces, air squadrons, and ship deployments to guard NATO nations together with Poland, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.
As I’ve made crystal clear: The USA and our Allies will defend each inch of territory of NATO nations with the total pressure of our collective energy. Each single inch.
And we stay clear-eyed. The Ukrainians are preventing again with pure braveness. However the subsequent few days, weeks and months, will probably be arduous on them.
Putin has unleashed violence and chaos. However whereas he might make good points on the battlefield, he pays a unbroken excessive worth over the long term.
And a proud Ukrainian folks, who’ve recognized 30 years of independence, have repeatedly proven that they won’t tolerate anybody who tries to take their nation backward.
To all Individuals, I will probably be trustworthy with you, as I at all times promised I might be. A Russian dictator, invading a international nation, has prices around the globe.
And I’m taking strong motion to ensure the ache of our sanctions is focused at Russia’s financial system. And I’ll use each instrument at our disposal to guard American companies and customers.
Tonight, I can announce that the US has labored with 30 different nations to launch 60 million barrels of oil from reserves around the globe.
America will lead that effort, releasing 30 million barrels from our personal Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And we stand able to do extra if essential, unified with our allies.
These steps will assist blunt fuel costs right here at dwelling. And I do know the information about what’s occurring can appear alarming.
However I would like you to know that we’re going to be OK.
When the historical past of this period is written, Putin’s struggle on Ukraine can have left Russia weaker and the remainder of the world stronger.
Whereas it shouldn’t have taken one thing so horrible for folks around the globe to see what’s at stake, now everybody sees it clearly.
We see the unity amongst leaders of countries, a extra unified Europe a extra unified West. And we see unity among the many people who find themselves gathering in cities in giant crowds around the globe even in Russia to exhibit their help for the folks of Ukraine.
Within the battle between democracy and autocracy, democracies are rising to the second, and the world is clearly selecting the facet of peace and safety.
This can be a actual take a look at. It’s going to take time. So allow us to proceed to attract inspiration from the iron will of the Ukrainian folks.
To our fellow Ukrainian Individuals who forge a deep bond that connects our two nations we stand with you.
Putin might circle Kyiv with tanks, however he won’t ever achieve the hearts and souls of the Ukrainian folks.
He won’t ever extinguish their love of freedom. He won’t ever weaken the resolve of the free world.
We meet tonight in an America that has lived via two of the toughest years this nation has ever confronted.
The pandemic has been punishing.
And so many households live paycheck to paycheck, struggling to maintain up with the rising price of meals, fuel, housing, and a lot extra.
I perceive.
I keep in mind when my Dad needed to depart our dwelling in Scranton, Pennsylvania to search out work. I grew up in a household the place if the worth of meals went up, you felt it.
That’s why one of many first issues I did as President was struggle to cross the American Rescue Plan.
As a result of folks have been hurting. We wanted to behave, and we did.
Few items of laws have performed extra in a vital second in our historical past to elevate us out of disaster.
It fueled our efforts to vaccinate the nation and fight COVID-19. It delivered instant financial aid for tens of tens of millions of Individuals.
Helped put meals on their desk, maintain a roof over their heads, and reduce the price of medical health insurance.
And as my Dad used to say, it gave folks somewhat respiration room.
And in contrast to the $2 Trillion tax reduce handed within the earlier administration that benefitted the highest 1% of Individuals, the American Rescue Plan helped working folks—and left nobody behind.
And it labored. It created jobs. A lot of jobs.
The truth is—our financial system created over 6.5 Million new jobs simply final yr, extra jobs created in a single yr
than ever earlier than within the historical past of America.
Our financial system grew at a price of 5.7% final yr, the strongest development in practically 40 years, step one in bringing basic change to an financial system that hasn’t labored for the working folks of this nation for too lengthy.
For the previous 40 years we have been informed that if we gave tax breaks to these on the very high, the advantages would trickle right down to everybody else.
However that trickle-down concept led to weaker financial development, decrease wages, greater deficits, and the widest hole between these on the high and everybody else in practically a century.
Vice President Harris and I ran for workplace with a brand new financial imaginative and prescient for America.
Spend money on America. Educate Individuals. Develop the workforce. Construct the financial system from the underside up
and the center out, not from the highest down.
As a result of we all know that when the center class grows, the poor have a ladder up and the rich do very effectively.
America used to have the very best roads, bridges, and airports on Earth.
Now our infrastructure is ranked thirteenth on the planet.
We gained’t be capable of compete for the roles of the twenty first Century if we don’t repair that.
That’s why it was so vital to cross the Bipartisan Infrastructure Regulation—probably the most sweeping funding to rebuild America in historical past.
This was a bipartisan effort, and I wish to thank the members of each events who labored to make it occur.
We’re performed speaking about infrastructure weeks.
We’re going to have an infrastructure decade.
It’ll rework America and put us on a path to win the financial competitors of the twenty first Century that we face with the remainder of the world—notably with China.
As I’ve informed Xi Jinping, it’s by no means wager to wager towards the American folks.
We’ll create good jobs for tens of millions of Individuals, modernizing roads, airports, ports, and waterways all throughout America.
And we’ll do all of it to resist the devastating results of the local weather disaster and promote environmental justice.
We’ll construct a nationwide community of 500,000 electrical car charging stations, start to switch toxic lead pipes—so each youngster—and each American—has clear water to drink at dwelling and in school, present inexpensive high-speed web for each American—city, suburban, rural, and tribal communities.
4,000 tasks have already been introduced.
And tonight, I’m saying that this yr we are going to begin fixing over 65,000 miles of freeway and 1,500 bridges in disrepair.
After we use taxpayer {dollars} to rebuild America – we’re going to Purchase American: purchase American merchandise to help American jobs.
The federal authorities spends about $600 Billion a yr to maintain the nation protected and safe.
There’s been a legislation on the books for nearly a century
to ensure taxpayers’ {dollars} help American jobs and companies.
Each Administration says they’ll do it, however we are literally doing it.
We’ll purchase American to ensure every little thing from the deck of an plane provider to the metal on freeway guardrails are made in America.
However to compete for the very best jobs of the longer term, we additionally have to degree the enjoying discipline with China and different opponents.
That’s why it’s so vital to cross the Bipartisan Innovation Act sitting in Congress that can make document investments in rising applied sciences and American manufacturing.
Let me offer you one instance of why it’s so vital to cross it.
In the event you journey 20 miles east of Columbus, Ohio, you’ll discover 1,000 empty acres of land.
It gained’t appear to be a lot, however should you cease and look intently, you’ll see a “Subject of goals,” the bottom on which America’s future will probably be constructed.
That is the place Intel, the American firm that helped construct Silicon Valley, goes to construct its $20 billion semiconductor “mega website”.
As much as eight state-of-the-art factories in a single place. 10,000 new good-paying jobs.
Among the most subtle manufacturing on the planet to make pc chips the scale of a fingertip that energy the world and our on a regular basis lives.
Smartphones. The Web. Expertise we’ve got but to invent.
However that’s only the start.
Intel’s CEO, Pat Gelsinger, who’s right here tonight, informed me they’re prepared to extend their funding from
$20 billion to $100 billion.
That will be one of many greatest investments in manufacturing in American historical past.
And all they’re ready for is so that you can cross this invoice.
So let’s not wait any longer. Ship it to my desk. I’ll signal it.
And we are going to actually take off.
And Intel shouldn’t be alone.
There’s one thing occurring in America.
Simply go searching and also you’ll see an incredible story.
The rebirth of the delight that comes from stamping merchandise “Made In America.” The revitalization of American manufacturing.
Firms are selecting to construct new factories right here, when just some years in the past, they’d have constructed them abroad.
That’s what is occurring. Ford is investing $11 billion to construct electrical automobiles, creating 11,000 jobs throughout the nation.
GM is making the most important funding in its historical past—$7 billion to construct electrical automobiles, creating 4,000 jobs in Michigan.
All informed, we created 369,000 new manufacturing jobs in America simply final yr.
Powered by folks I’ve met like JoJo Burgess, from generations of union steelworkers from Pittsburgh, who’s right here with us tonight.
As Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown says, “It’s time to bury the label “Rust Belt.”
It’s time.
However with all the brilliant spots in our financial system, document job development and better wages, too many households are struggling to maintain up with the payments.
Inflation is robbing them of the good points they could in any other case really feel.
I get it. That’s why my high precedence is getting costs underneath management.
Look, our financial system roared again sooner than most predicted, however the pandemic meant that companies had a tough time hiring sufficient employees to maintain up manufacturing of their factories.
The pandemic additionally disrupted world provide chains.
When factories shut, it takes longer to make items and get them from the warehouse to the shop, and costs go up.
Take a look at vehicles.
Final yr, there weren’t sufficient semiconductors to make all of the vehicles that folks needed to purchase.
And guess what, costs of cars went up.
So—we’ve got a alternative.
One technique to struggle inflation is to drive down wages and make Individuals poorer.
I’ve a greater plan to struggle inflation.
Decrease your prices, not your wages.
Make extra vehicles and semiconductors in America.
Extra infrastructure and innovation in America.
Extra items shifting sooner and cheaper in America.
Extra jobs the place you may earn residing in America.
And as a substitute of counting on international provide chains, let’s make it in America.
Economists name it “rising the productive capability of our financial system.”
I name it constructing a greater America.
My plan to struggle inflation will decrease your prices and decrease the deficit.
17 Nobel laureates in economics say my plan will ease long-term inflationary pressures. High enterprise leaders and most Individuals help my plan. And right here’s the plan:
First – reduce the price of pharmaceuticals. Simply have a look at insulin. One in ten Individuals has diabetes. In Virginia, I met a 13-year-old boy named Joshua Davis.
He and his Dad each have Kind 1 diabetes, which implies they want insulin each day. Insulin prices about $10 a vial to make.
However drug corporations cost households like Joshua and his Dad as much as 30 instances extra. I spoke with Joshua’s mother.
Think about what it’s like to take a look at your youngster who wants insulin and don’t know the way you’re going to pay for it.
What it does to your dignity, your capacity to look your youngster within the eye, to be the mum or dad you count on to be.
Joshua is right here with us tonight. Yesterday was his birthday. Completely happy birthday, buddy.
For Joshua, and for the 200,000 different younger folks with Kind 1 diabetes, let’s cap the price of insulin at $35 a month so everybody can afford it.
Drug corporations will nonetheless do very effectively. And whereas we’re at it let Medicare negotiate decrease costs for pharmaceuticals, just like the VA already does.
Look, the American Rescue Plan helps tens of millions of households on Reasonably priced Care Act plans save $2,400 a yr on their well being care premiums. Let’s shut the protection hole and make these financial savings everlasting.
Second – reduce vitality prices for households a mean of $500 a yr by combatting local weather change.
Let’s present investments and tax credit to weatherize your houses and companies to be vitality environment friendly and also you get a tax credit score; double America’s clear vitality manufacturing in photo voltaic, wind, and a lot extra; decrease the worth of electrical automobiles, saving you one other $80 a month since you’ll by no means must pay on the fuel pump once more.
Third – reduce the price of youngster care. Many households pay as much as $14,000 a yr for youngster care per youngster.
Center-class and dealing households shouldn’t must pay greater than 7% of their revenue for care of younger youngsters.
My plan will reduce the price in half for many households and assist dad and mom, together with tens of millions of ladies, who left the workforce through the pandemic as a result of they couldn’t afford youngster care, to have the ability to get again to work.
My plan doesn’t cease there. It additionally consists of dwelling and long-term care. Extra inexpensive housing. And Pre-Ok for each 3- and 4-year-old.
All of those will decrease prices.
And underneath my plan, no person incomes lower than $400,000 a yr pays an extra penny in new taxes. No person.
The one factor all Individuals agree on is that the tax system shouldn’t be truthful. Now we have to repair it.
I’m not seeking to punish anybody. However let’s be sure companies and the wealthiest Individuals begin paying their justifiable share.
Simply final yr, 55 Fortune 500 companies earned $40 billion in earnings and paid zero {dollars} in federal revenue tax.
That’s merely not truthful. That’s why I’ve proposed a 15% minimal tax price for firms.
We bought greater than 130 nations to agree on a world minimal tax price so corporations can’t get out of paying their taxes at dwelling by delivery jobs and factories abroad.
That’s why I’ve proposed closing loopholes so the very rich don’t pay a decrease tax price than a trainer or a firefighter.
In order that’s my plan. It would develop the financial system and decrease prices for households.
So what are we ready for? Let’s get this performed. And whilst you’re at it, verify my nominees to the Federal Reserve, which performs a vital position in preventing inflation.
My plan won’t solely decrease prices to provide households a good shot, it’ll decrease the deficit.
The earlier Administration not solely ballooned the deficit with tax cuts for the very rich and companies, it undermined the watchdogs whose job was to maintain pandemic aid funds from being wasted.
However in my administration, the watchdogs have been welcomed again.
We’re going after the criminals who stole billions in aid cash meant for small companies and tens of millions of Individuals.
And tonight, I’m saying that the Justice Division will identify a chief prosecutor for pandemic fraud.
By the tip of this yr, the deficit will probably be right down to lower than half what it was earlier than I took workplace.
The one president ever to chop the deficit by multiple trillion {dollars} in a single yr.
Decreasing your prices additionally means demanding extra competitors.
I’m a capitalist, however capitalism with out competitors isn’t capitalism.
It’s exploitation—and it drives up costs.
When companies don’t must compete, their earnings go up, your costs go up, and small companies and household farmers and ranchers go underneath.
We see it occurring with ocean carriers shifting items out and in of America.
Throughout the pandemic, these foreign-owned corporations raised costs by as a lot as 1,000% and made document earnings.
Tonight, I’m saying a crackdown on these corporations overcharging American companies and customers.
And as Wall Avenue corporations take over extra nursing houses, high quality in these houses has gone down and prices have gone up.
That ends on my watch.
Medicare goes to set greater requirements for nursing houses and ensure your family members get the care they deserve and count on.
We’ll additionally reduce prices and maintain the financial system going robust by giving employees a good shot, present extra coaching and apprenticeships, rent them primarily based on their expertise not levels.
Let’s cross the Paycheck Equity Act and paid depart.
Elevate the minimal wage to $15 an hour and prolong the Youngster Tax Credit score, so nobody has to lift a household in poverty.
Let’s enhance Pell Grants and enhance our historic help of HBCUs, and put money into what Jill—our First Girl who teaches full-time—calls America’s best-kept secret: group schools.
And let’s cross the PRO Act when a majority of employees wish to kind a union—they shouldn’t be stopped.
After we put money into our employees, after we construct the financial system from the underside up and the center out collectively, we will do one thing we haven’t performed in a very long time: construct a greater America.
For greater than two years, COVID-19 has impacted each choice in our lives and the lifetime of the nation.
And I do know you’re drained, annoyed, and exhausted.
However I additionally know this.
Due to the progress we’ve made, due to your resilience and the instruments we’ve got, tonight I can say
we’re shifting ahead safely, again to extra regular routines.
We’ve reached a brand new second within the struggle towards COVID-19, with extreme instances right down to a degree not seen since final July.
Just some days in the past, the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention—the CDC—issued new masks tips.
Below these new tips, most Individuals in many of the nation can now be masks free.
And primarily based on the projections, extra of the nation will attain that time throughout the subsequent couple of weeks.
Due to the progress we’ve got made this previous yr, COVID-19 want now not management our lives.
I do know some are speaking about “residing with COVID-19”. Tonight – I say that we are going to by no means simply settle for residing with COVID-19.
We’ll proceed to fight the virus as we do different illnesses. And since this can be a virus that mutates and spreads, we are going to keep on guard.
Listed here are 4 frequent sense steps as we transfer ahead safely.
First, keep protected with vaccines and coverings. We all know how extremely efficient vaccines are. In the event you’re vaccinated and boosted you may have the very best diploma of safety.
We’ll by no means hand over on vaccinating extra Individuals. Now, I do know dad and mom with youngsters underneath 5 are desirous to see a vaccine approved for his or her youngsters.
The scientists are working arduous to get that performed and we’ll be prepared with loads of vaccines once they do.
We’re additionally prepared with anti-viral remedies. In the event you get COVID-19, the Pfizer capsule reduces your possibilities of ending up within the hospital by 90%.
We’ve ordered extra of those capsules than anybody on the planet. And Pfizer is working additional time to get us 1 Million capsules this month and greater than double that subsequent month.
And we’re launching the “Check to Deal with” initiative so folks can get examined at a pharmacy, and in the event that they’re constructive, obtain antiviral capsules on the spot without charge.
In the event you’re immunocompromised or have another vulnerability, we’ve got remedies and free high-quality masks.
We’re leaving nobody behind or ignoring anybody’s wants as we transfer ahead.
And on testing, we’ve got made a whole bunch of tens of millions of exams obtainable so that you can order at no cost.
Even should you already ordered free exams tonight, I’m saying that you would be able to order extra from covidtests.gov beginning subsequent week.
Second – we should put together for brand spanking new variants. Over the previous yr, we’ve gotten a lot better at detecting new variants.
If essential, we’ll be capable of deploy new vaccines inside 100 days as a substitute of many extra months or years.
And, if Congress offers the funds we want, we’ll have new stockpiles of exams, masks, and capsules prepared if wanted.
I can not promise a brand new variant gained’t come. However I can promise you we’ll do every little thing inside our energy to be prepared if it does.
Third – we will finish the shutdown of colleges and companies. Now we have the instruments we want.
It’s time for Individuals to get again to work and fill our nice downtowns once more. Individuals working from dwelling can really feel protected to start to return to the workplace.
We’re doing that right here within the federal authorities. The overwhelming majority of federal employees will as soon as once more work in individual.
Our faculties are open. Let’s maintain it that manner. Our children should be in class.
And with 75% of grownup Individuals absolutely vaccinated and hospitalizations down by 77%, most Individuals can take away their masks, return to work, keep within the classroom, and transfer ahead safely.
We achieved this as a result of we supplied free vaccines, remedies, exams, and masks.
After all, persevering with this prices cash.
I’ll quickly ship Congress a request.
The overwhelming majority of Individuals have used these instruments and should wish to once more, so I count on Congress to cross it rapidly.
Fourth, we are going to proceed vaccinating the world.
We’ve despatched 475 Million vaccine doses to 112 nations, greater than some other nation.
And we gained’t cease.
Now we have misplaced a lot to COVID-19. Time with each other. And worst of all, a lot lack of life.
Let’s use this second to reset. Let’s cease taking a look at COVID-19 as a partisan dividing line and see it for what it’s: A God-awful illness.
Let’s cease seeing one another as enemies, and begin seeing one another for who we actually are: Fellow Individuals.
We will’t change how divided we’ve been. However we will change how we transfer ahead—on COVID-19 and different points we should face collectively.
I just lately visited the New York Metropolis Police Division days after the funerals of Officer Wilbert Mora and his associate, Officer Jason Rivera.
They have been responding to a 9-1-1 name when a person shot and killed them with a stolen gun.
Officer Mora was 27 years previous.
Officer Rivera was 22.
Each Dominican Individuals who’d grown up on the identical streets they later selected to patrol as cops.
I spoke with their households and informed them that we’re eternally in debt for his or her sacrifice, and we are going to stick with it their mission to revive the belief and security each group deserves.
I’ve labored on these points a very long time.
I do know what works: Investing in crime preventionand group cops who’ll stroll the beat, who’ll know the neighborhood, and who can restore belief and security.
So let’s not abandon our streets. Or select between security and equal justice.
Let’s come collectively to guard our communities, restore belief, and maintain legislation enforcement accountable.
That’s why the Justice Division required physique cameras, banned chokeholds, and restricted no-knock warrants for its officers.
That’s why the American Rescue Plan supplied $350 Billion that cities, states, and counties can use to rent extra police and put money into confirmed methods like group violence interruption—trusted messengers breaking the cycle of violence and trauma and giving younger folks hope.
We must always all agree: The reply is to not Defund the police. The reply is to FUND the police with the sources and coaching they should defend our communities.
I ask Democrats and Republicans alike: Move my finances and maintain our neighborhoods protected.
And I’ll maintain doing every little thing in my energy to crack down on gun trafficking and ghost weapons you should purchase on-line and make at dwelling—they haven’t any serial numbers and may’t be traced.
And I ask Congress to cross confirmed measures to scale back gun violence. Move common background checks. Why ought to anybody on a terrorist record be capable of buy a weapon?
Ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
Repeal the legal responsibility protect that makes gun producers the one trade in America that may’t be sued.
These legal guidelines don’t infringe on the Second Modification. They save lives.
Essentially the most basic proper in America is the correct to vote – and to have it counted. And it’s underneath assault.
In state after state, new legal guidelines have been handed, not solely to suppress the vote, however to subvert complete elections.
We can not let this occur.
Tonight. I name on the Senate to: Move the Freedom to Vote Act. Move the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. And whilst you’re at it, cross the Disclose Act so Individuals can know who’s funding our elections.
Tonight, I’d prefer to honor somebody who has devoted his life to serve this nation: Justice Stephen Breyer—an Military veteran, Constitutional scholar, and retiring Justice of the US Supreme Court docket. Justice Breyer, thanks in your service.
Some of the critical constitutional tasks a President has is nominating somebody to serve on the US Supreme Court docket.
And I did that 4 days in the past, after I nominated Circuit Court docket of Appeals Choose Ketanji Brown Jackson. Certainly one of our nation’s high authorized minds, who will proceed Justice Breyer’s legacy of excellence.
A former high litigator in personal follow. A former federal public defender. And from a household of public faculty educators and cops. A consensus builder. Since she’s been nominated, she’s acquired a broad vary of help—from the Fraternal Order of Police to former judges appointed by Democrats and Republicans.
And if we’re to advance liberty and justice, we have to safe the Border and repair the immigration system.
We will do each. At our border, we’ve put in new expertise like cutting-edge scanners to raised detect drug smuggling.
We’ve arrange joint patrols with Mexico and Guatemala to catch extra human traffickers.
We’re putting in devoted immigration judges so households fleeing persecution and violence can have their instances heard sooner.
We’re securing commitments and supporting companions in South and Central America to host extra refugees and safe their very own borders.
We will do all this whereas retaining lit the torch of liberty that has led generations of immigrants to this land—my forefathers and so a lot of yours.
Present a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, these on non permanent standing, farm employees, and important employees.
Revise our legal guidelines so companies have the employees they want and households don’t wait many years to reunite.
It’s not solely the correct factor to do—it’s the economically sensible factor to do.
That’s why immigration reform is supported by everybody from labor unions to non secular leaders to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Let’s get it performed as soon as and for all.
Advancing liberty and justice additionally requires defending the rights of ladies.
The constitutional proper affirmed in Roe v. Wade—standing precedent for half a century—is underneath assault as by no means earlier than.
If we wish to go ahead—not backward—we should defend entry to well being care. Protect a lady’s proper to decide on. And let’s proceed to advance maternal well being care in America.
And for our LGBTQ+ Individuals, let’s lastly get the bipartisan Equality Act to my desk. The onslaught of state legal guidelines focusing on transgender Individuals and their households is fallacious.
As I mentioned final yr, particularly to our youthful transgender Individuals, I’ll at all times have your again as your President, so that you might be your self and attain your God-given potential.
Whereas it typically seems that we by no means agree, that isn’t true. I signed 80 bipartisan payments into legislation final yr. From stopping authorities shutdowns to defending Asian-Individuals from still-too-common hate crimes to reforming army justice.
And shortly, we’ll strengthen the Violence Towards Girls Act that I first wrote three many years in the past. It can be crucial for us to indicate the nation that we will come collectively and do huge issues.
So tonight I’m providing a Unity Agenda for the Nation. 4 huge issues we will do collectively.
First, beat the opioid epidemic.
There’s a lot we will do. Improve funding for prevention, remedy, hurt discount, and restoration.
Eliminate outdated guidelines that cease docs from prescribing remedies. And cease the movement of illicit medicine by working with state and native legislation enforcement to go after traffickers.
In the event you’re affected by dependancy, know you aren’t alone. I consider in restoration, and I have a good time the 23 million Individuals in restoration.
Second, let’s tackle psychological well being. Particularly amongst our youngsters, whose lives and training have been turned the wrong way up.
The American Rescue Plan gave faculties cash to rent lecturers and assist college students make up for misplaced studying.
I urge each mum or dad to ensure your faculty does simply that. And we will all play an element—signal as much as be a tutor or a mentor.
Youngsters have been additionally struggling earlier than the pandemic. Bullying, violence, trauma, and the harms of social media.
As Frances Haugen, who’s right here with us tonight, has proven, we should maintain social media platforms accountable for the nationwide experiment they’re conducting on our youngsters for revenue.
It’s time to strengthen privateness protections, ban focused promoting to youngsters, demand tech corporations cease amassing private information on our youngsters.
And let’s get all Individuals the psychological well being providers they want. Extra folks they’ll flip to for assist, and full parity between bodily and psychological well being care.
Third, help our veterans.
Veterans are the very best of us.
I’ve at all times believed that we’ve got a sacred obligation to equip all these we ship to struggle and take care of them and their households once they come dwelling.
My administration is offering help with job coaching and housing, and now serving to lower-income veterans get VA care debt-free.
Our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan confronted many risks.
One was stationed at bases and inhaling poisonous smoke from “burn pits” that incinerated wastes of struggle—medical and hazard materials, jet gas, and extra.
After they got here dwelling, most of the world’s fittest and finest educated warriors have been by no means the identical.
Complications. Numbness. Dizziness.
A most cancers that may put them in a flag-draped coffin.
I do know.
A type of troopers was my son Main Beau Biden.
We don’t know for positive if a burn pit was the reason for his mind most cancers, or the illnesses of so a lot of our troops.
However I’m dedicated to discovering out every little thing we will.
Dedicated to army households like Danielle Robinson from Ohio.
The widow of Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson.
He was born a soldier. Military Nationwide Guard. Fight medic in Kosovo and Iraq.
Stationed close to Baghdad, simply yards from burn pits the scale of soccer fields.
Heath’s widow Danielle is right here with us tonight. They beloved going to Ohio State soccer video games. He beloved constructing Legos with their daughter.
However most cancers from extended publicity to burn pits ravaged Heath’s lungs and physique.
Danielle says Heath was a fighter to the very finish.
He didn’t know find out how to cease preventing, and neither did she.
Via her ache she discovered goal to demand we do higher.
Tonight, Danielle—we’re.
The VA is pioneering new methods of linking poisonous exposures to illnesses, already serving to extra veterans get advantages.
And tonight, I’m saying we’re increasing eligibility to veterans affected by 9 respiratory cancers.
I’m additionally calling on Congress: cross a legislation to ensure veterans devastated by poisonous exposures in Iraq and Afghanistan lastly get the advantages and complete well being care they deserve.
And fourth, let’s finish most cancers as we all know it.
That is private to me and Jill, to Kamala, and to so a lot of you.
Most cancers is the #2 reason behind dying in America–second solely to coronary heart illness.
Final month, I introduced our plan to supercharge
the Most cancers Moonshot that President Obama requested me to steer six years in the past.
Our purpose is to chop the most cancers dying price by at the very least 50% over the subsequent 25 years, flip extra cancers from dying sentences into treatable illnesses.
Extra help for sufferers and households.
To get there, I name on Congress to fund ARPA-H, the Superior Analysis Tasks Company for Well being.
It’s primarily based on DARPA—the Protection Division venture that led to the Web, GPS, and a lot extra.
ARPA-H can have a singular goal—to drive breakthroughs in most cancers, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and extra.
A unity agenda for the nation.
We will do that.
My fellow Individuals—tonight , we’ve got gathered in a sacred house—the citadel of our democracy.
On this Capitol, technology after technology, Individuals have debated nice questions amid nice strife, and have performed nice issues.
Now we have fought for freedom, expanded liberty, defeated totalitarianism and terror.
And constructed the strongest, freest, and most affluent nation the world has ever recognized.
Now’s the hour.
Our second of accountability.
Our take a look at of resolve and conscience, of historical past itself.
It’s on this second that our character is shaped. Our goal is discovered. Our future is cast.
Nicely I do know this nation.
We’ll meet the take a look at.
To guard freedom and liberty, to develop equity and alternative.
We’ll save democracy.
As arduous as these instances have been, I’m extra optimistic about America at this time than I’ve been my entire life.
As a result of I see the longer term that’s inside our grasp.
As a result of I do know there may be merely nothing past our capability.
We’re the one nation on Earth that has at all times turned each disaster we’ve got confronted into a chance.
The one nation that may be outlined by a single phrase: potentialities.
So on this night time, in our 245th yr as a nation, I’ve come to report on the State of the Union.
And my report is that this: the State of the Union is powerful—since you, the American folks, are robust.
We’re stronger at this time than we have been a yr in the past.
And we will probably be stronger a yr from now than we’re at this time.
Now’s our second to satisfy and overcome the challenges of our time.
And we are going to, as one folks.
One America.
The USA of America.
Could God bless you all. Could God defend our troops.
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