Letter to the Editor: How is your State of the Union?

How is your State of the Union? President Biden says you are doing pretty good. He says the world is now a safer place and the military has never been stronger. Unemployment is at 3.4% and everybody that wants a job, can get one. He says he stood up to the Chinese and told them we are bringing manufacturing back here to help put all Americans to work. It even sounded familiar to those MAGA speeches of another recent president that the democrats hated just over 2 years ago. He has visited a number of manufacturing plants and talked of plans to build more chip manufacturing plants. He talked of 12 million new jobs created, and that’s a bit misleading, as most of those jobs are just coming back on line due to the pandemic being over. He claims we are doing very well at the border with more Border Patrol people working there than ever.

I just had a delivery of fuel oil that was $3.99 a gallon, up from $2.44 a gallon two years ago and even up $.50 a gallon from last year. I recently filled up my car and the gasoline was $3.559 per gallon compared with $2.449 two years ago. Both of these were up well over $1.00 per gallon. Grocery prices are up significantly. Eggs and meat prices are out of sight. He did actually admit that fossil energy will still be needed the next ten years.

The Chinese have just flown a surveillance balloon passing over at least 20 military bases and missile silos before it was finally shot down. Do you think we would be allowed to fly a balloon over Chinese military installations? He claimed he listened to his military advisers, but sure didn’t with the Afghanistan withdrawal.

Again, the President wants to raise taxes on rich people and large corporations, and promises that anyone earning under $400,000 will not get a tax increase. That may be true, but who do you think is going to pay more for their products when corporate taxes go up? It’ll be us. Remember, already the top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all income taxes, and the bottom 90% pay about 30% of all taxes. He also mentioned what some of the new 87,000 IRS personnel would be doing when he said, they will be going after restaurant waiters, waitress and other tip workers that are cheating the government. Do you think tip workers will balance the budget?

With inflation well over 6% and the fed still raising interest rates, good luck getting a low interest rate on anything, especially on a home, a car, a big appliance, or credit card.

His statement that the military is stronger than ever is definitely misleading. We do have the highest defense budget in the world, however all the branches are finding it difficult to get new recruits, and new re-enlistments. This is not your fathers military. Standards are being lowered so more people will qualify to serve. Bonuses are offered for most specialties. A lot of munitions and money is being sent to help Ukraine. The experts are saying it isn’t lowering our stock piles.

His speech was painfully long and if you believed him, we are doing fantastic and it’s going to get better. His last two years better go better than his first two.

I don’t recall anything about building any new refineries, or adding any new pipe lines. I didn’t hear, though I may have fell asleep, anything about how he is going to help lower energy costs. Without lower energy cost, prices of other commodities are not going to go down.

He needs to take the lead, along with other World leaders and find a way to get Putin to stop this war in Ukraine. It is time for some serious talk with the leaders of China. Also, someone needs to have a serious talk with Mexico about the disaster at the border. Where is his Henry Kissinger?

He didn’t say much about bringing down crime, as though it doesn’t exist. The major cities of the country have big increases in crime and homelessness. Do you think banning assault rifles is all we can do? That’s all I heard. Maybe it is time for new speech writers.

May God Bless the USA, and pray that our country will stay out of a war in the next two years.

Ray Rinebold — Chemung