WASHINGTON — At Thursday’s State of the Union address, President Joe Biden called for higher taxation on the wealthy, tax credits for ordinary Americans and eliminating deceptive pricing for consumers.
“Too many corporations raise their prices to pad their profits, charging you more and more for less and less,” Biden said. “That’s why we’re cracking down.”
The president pointed to his successes this year in implementing the 15% corporate minimum tax rate created by the Inflation Reduction Act, and finalizing an $8 cap on credit card late fees just this week.
He also reiterated points from last year’s State of the Union speech on proposed rules for transparent pricing, requiring companies to give consumers the total price upfront for event tickets, travel expenses, cable, utilities and more.
“I’m saving American families $20 billion a year with all of the junk fees I’m eliminating,” Biden said, citing figures from the Council of Economic Advisors.
The subject of high prices saw only a brief mention in the wide-ranging speech, despite it being a priority issue for Americans. The Pew Research Center found that strengthening the economy is the only standout issue for voters and has been for the past two years. They also found that 72% of U.S. adults say they are very concerned about the price of food and consumer goods.
Meanwhile, many polls show Donald Trump leading Biden in the upcoming 2024 presidential race, and an NBC News poll found that Trump leads Biden by 20 points on the economy.
Biden highlighted economic wins in the country’s recovery from COVID-19, with unemployment at 50-year lows, inflation coming down and wage increases surpassing inflation rates.
“I inherited an economy that was on the brink. Now our economy is the envy of the world,” he said.
After the speech, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) criticized Biden’s failure to acknowledge people’s concerns about high prices for consumer goods.
“People believe the economic choices his administration made resulted in them having to pay higher prices at the pump, at the grocery store. There was no empathy for those people, there was no solution for those people,” Gaetz said.
He also called Biden’s proposed $10,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers and people selling their starter homes “inflationary.”
“It’s like, ‘I’m gonna stop inflation by giving everybody an extra 400 bucks.’ I think that defies basic economic theory.”
