President Biden's 2023 State of the Union address

The US hit the debt ceiling set by Congress in January, forcing the Treasury Department to start taking extraordinary measures to keep the government paying its bills and escalating pressure on Capitol Hill to avoid a default later this year.

The White House and the new House GOP majority have been at odds over how to resolve a way to raise the debt limit. President Joe Biden and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy met last week to discuss a possible agreement.

House Republicans continue to demand that lifting the borrowing cap be accompanied by spending cuts. In January, McCarthy rejected Democratic calls for a clean debt ceiling increase without any conditions attached, something he said he reiterated to the president during their meeting.

The White House has said it will not negotiate or offer concessions and has pushed McCarthy to show the president his budget.

Though the debt ceiling was originally designed to make it easier for the federal government to borrow, the limit has become a way for Congress to restrict the growth of borrowing — turning it into a political football in recent decades.

What is the debt ceiling: Established by Congress, the debt ceiling is the maximum amount the federal government is able to borrow to finance obligations that lawmakers and presidents have already approved – since the government runs budget deficits and the revenue it collects is not sufficient. Increasing the cap does not authorize new spending commitments.

The debt ceiling, which currently stands at $31.4 trillion, was created more than a century ago and has been modified more than 100 times since World War II.

What would happen if the US defaults on its debt: The Treasury Department said it expects extraordinary measures to last until early June. Once these measures and cash on hand are exhausted, the debt ceiling crisis would start having very real impacts.

If the government is no longer able to borrow, it would not have enough money to pay all its bills in full and on time — including interest on the national debt. So it would likely have to temporarily delay payments or default on some of its commitments, potentially affecting Social Security payments, veterans’ benefits and federal employees’ salaries, among others.

President Joe Biden, touting progress against inflation, said: “Here at home, gas prices are down $1.50 since their peak.” 

Facts First: Biden’s claim is correct. He didn’t mention, however, that gas prices are still significantly higher today than they were when he took office. And it’s important to note that presidential policy has a limited impact on gas prices, which are determined by a complex global interplay of supply and demand factors. 

As of the day of the State of the Union, the national average for a gallon of regular gas was $3.457, per data from the AAA. That was indeed down more than $1.50 from a record high of $5.016 in mid-June. But it was still up from a national average of $2.393 on Biden’s Inauguration Day in January 2021.

Biden has taken steps to lower gas prices. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, which contributed to a spike in gas prices, the Biden administration released 180 million barrels of oil from the national Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The administration also issued an emergency waiver that allowed the sale of E15 gasoline, a blend that contains 15% ethanol, last summer.

But as we regularly note — whether a president is boasting about a decline in gas prices or his critics are blasting him for an increase in gas prices — presidential policy is not a primary factor in the price of gasoline.  

De Haan said Biden’s releases of oil from the strategic reserve “put some downward pressure on the price of oil, but I would not call it materially significant.” 

During tonight's address, President Joe Biden announced a new standard that would require all construction material used in federal infrastructure projects be made in America.

Biden went on to directly speak to the American people, stating that his economic plan is about "investing in places and people that have been forgotten ... Amid the economic upheaval of the past four decades, too many people have been left behind and treated like they’re invisible. Maybe that’s you, watching from home."

"You remember the jobs that went away. You remember them don't you? The folks at home remember them. You wonder whether a path even exists anymore for your children to get ahead without moving away. I get that. That’s why we’re building an economy where no one's left behind," he said. "Job's a coming back. Pride is coming back because choices we made in the last several years."

President Joe Biden telegraphed his intent to highlight bipartisanship in his State of the Union address, but one key statistic is viewed inside the West Wing – and underappreciated. 

To be clear, many of those wins are on bills that fly under the news radar – or even the radar of many members of Congress. But in each, White House officials have sought to identify rank-and-file GOP member priorities and get them to Biden’s desk.

Has it had an effect on the partisan warfare in Washington? Even White House officials acknowledge the answer is no. 

But do they matter to those individual members? And will those members remember that effort from the White House legislative affairs team in some future negotiation?

That’s the long game bet. 

It’s not surprising that Republicans didn’t give a rousing ovation for President Joe Biden when he entered the chamber, or when he praise Nancy Pelosi for her tenure as House Speaker — but they also had a mixed and tepid reaction for Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell when the president recognized McConnell for being the longest-serving party leader in Senate history.

Many House Republicans remained seated — including hardliners like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The reason? Lingering frustration over his support for bipartisan bills in the last Congress — even as House Republicans largely opposed them. Also, McConnell’s rock-bottom relationship with former President Donald Trump has eroded his standing in the MAGA-aligned House GOP Conference.

Democracy remains "unbroken" despite hardships and challenges in the past two years, President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address.

"Two years ago, democracy faced its greatest threat to the civil war, and today, though bruised, our democracy remains unbowed and unbroken," he said, referring to the events of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.

The president also talked about the challenges that came with the Covid-19 pandemic — schools and businesses were shut down, stunting the economy. He said the US was still able to overcome, touting his administration's job creation.

President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address that his administration has "created, with the help of many people in this room, 12 million new jobs — more jobs created in two years than any president has ever created in four years.” 

Facts First: Biden’s number is accurate: the US economy added 12.1 million jobs between Biden’s first full month in office, February 2021, and January 2023. That number is indeed higher than the number of jobs added in any previous four-year presidential term. However, it’s important to note that Biden took office in an unusual pandemic context that makes meaningful comparison to other periods very difficult.  

Biden became president less than a year after the economy shed nearly 22 million jobs over two months, March and April 2020, because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The jobs recovery then began immediately after that, under then-President Donald Trump, but there was still an unprecedented hole to fill when Biden took office.  

Biden is free to argue that his stimulus legislation and other policies have helped the country gain jobs faster than it otherwise would have. (As always, it’s debatable precisely how much credit the president deserves for job-creation.) Nonetheless, it is clear that there could only be such an extraordinary number of jobs added in 2021 and 2022 because there was such an extraordinary number of jobs lost in early 2020. 

We're tracking the approximate length of President Joe Biden's second State of the Union speech. Here's how it compares to the longest and shortest SOTU addresses since 1964.

President Joe Biden started his State of the Union address Tuesday by congratulating new, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. This is the first time Biden is addressing a GOP-controlled House.

McCarthy and Vice President Kamala Harris are seated behind Biden.

The president also congratulated Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries as the first Black House Minority leader, as well as Sen. Mitch McConnell for being the longest-serving Senate leader.

"I want to give special recognition to someone who I think is going to be considered the greatest Speaker in the history of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi," Biden added, which was met by cheers from Democrats as Pelosi blew the president a kiss from her seat in the chamber.

Biden is expected to focus on bipartisanship throughout the address.