Congresswoman Claudia Tenney Responds to Biden’s First Joint Address to Congress

From the office of Congresswoman Claudia Tenney:

Washington, D.C. – Congresswoman Claudia Tenney (NY-22) today issued the following statement in response to President Joe Biden’s Joint Address to Congress on Wednesday night. “President Biden promised unity, but in his first 100 days, he’s surrendered to the partisan far-left agenda that is causing irreparable damage to citizens across the nation. “The spending plan President Biden unveiled tonight sacrifices freedom and embraces socialism. The disastrous plan is a $1.8 trillion partisan grab-bag of liberal priorities that would bring his total spending proposed in the first 100 days to a record $6.6 trillion. That’s many times more than we spent during the Great Depression and the Great Recession combined when adjusted for inflation.

“Biden is proposing tax hikes that will hurt employers across all sectors, including middle class families and farmers. These massive tax increases will have adverse consequences for all Americans. President Biden’s radical tax and spend policies will hurt our nation’s recovery, especially as we struggle to emerge from a pandemic. Saddling Americans with unsustainable debt will erode our economic freedom. “President Biden also provided no solutions to the human trafficking catastrophe on our Southern Border, which he caused by rolling back commonsense border policies that were working. The approach the President outlined will not help the current crisis, safeguard our communities or save the lives of thousands of young people who are being exploited every day by brutal cartels. We must complete the wall, deploy 21st century technology, and give our law enforcement officers the resources and flexibility they need to ensure security to all affected at the border.

“President Biden also failed to rebuke the dangerous calls from members of Congress to defund the police. Instead, he asked the Democrat-controlled Congress to adopt yet another partisan bill that ends qualified immunity for law enforcement officers. This initiative only enriches the profiteering trial lawyers and threatens to make our communities even less safe. “President Biden must prioritize unity and bipartisanship in order to gain the trust of the American people and support from elected leaders on both sides of the aisle. Empty rhetoric and overused political slogans don’t translate into the credible policy solutions we desperately need now.” President Biden delivering on partisan priorities in his first 100 days:

Just how unprecedented is President Biden’s spending proposal? Adjusted for inflation, the United States spent $850 billion on the New Deal at the peak of the Great Depression and just over $1 trillion in response to the Great Recession in 2009. President Biden is now proposing to spend six times as much as we did in the Great Depression and the Great Recession combined. It’s socialism on steroids.

Earlier this year, President Biden rushed the largest spending package in our history – nearly $2 trillion – through Congress without a single Republican vote. The spending bill has jeopardized our economic recovery by making government aid a more attractive option than a paycheck for many. This has made it harder for small businesses to hire and reopen.

President Biden issued more Executive Orders in his first 100 days – nearly 60 – than Presidents Trump, Obama, or Bush, without any bipartisan consensus from Congress. They’ve advanced far-left priorities that most Americans oppose:

Supreme Court: President Biden ordered a study on Supreme Court packing just days before Congressional Democrats introduced legislation to actually pack the Supreme Court. The plan to pack the Supreme Court threatens its independence and puts politics before legal principle. It is an assault on our freedom and would undermine the people’s trust and confidence in this sacred, non-partisan institution.

Energy: President Biden immediately halted construction of the Keystone pipeline, despite opposition from labor unions and numerous other stakeholders. Halting the pipeline project cost thousands of good-paying union jobs. President Biden also stopped energy exploration on federal lands, threatening our energy independence and jeopardizing nearly 1,000,000 jobs in the energy sector. Gas prices have gone up by 159% over the last year.

Immigration: President Biden’s rollback of Trump-era immigration orders has led to an unprecedented human trafficking crisis at our border. Vulnerable children are the ones paying the price most severely, with cartels making millions of dollars each day trafficking innocent children across the border in record numbers. In March, 18,890 unaccompanied children crossed the border – the highest ever recorded and a 65% increase from the previous record of 11,475 in 2019. Seizures of fentanyl have also skyrocketed 233%, and there has been a 400% increase in the number of migrants apprehended compared to March 2020.

Second Amendment: President Biden issued several Executive Orders that further erode Second Amendment rights.

Environment and Health: President Biden put the United States back in the one-sided Paris Climate Accord, which advantages countries like China over countries that act in good faith like the United States. He also stopped the United States from withdrawing from the World Health Organization, which the pandemic proved to be a broken institution biased toward China that is in desperate need of reform.