State of the Union: Which Biden proposals could actually get done with a GOP House?

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President Joe Biden used his State of the Union address to outline several policy proposals. Here are the ones that actually have a chance of passing.

While some of Biden’s policy initiatives are ones that have virtually no chance of becoming law (for example, a tax on the unrealized capital gains of billionaires), there are some that might pass muster with the Republican-controlled House.

Cancer Moonshot

Biden scored bipartisan applause for his goal to recommit to his so-called “Cancer Moonshot.” The goal of the initiative is to slash the cancer death rate by 50% over the next quarter-century. Biden used the example of a family with a cancer-stricken child who was able to beat her cancer despite having only a 5% chance of survival.

Biden mentioned that former President George W. Bush led a bipartisan effort, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which helped fund the global fight against HIV/AIDS. Biden emphasized the success of the program, which began some 20 years ago.

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“I believe we can do the same with cancer,” Biden told lawmakers. “Let’s end cancer as we know it and cure some cancers once and for all.”

Child tax credit

During his Tuesday night speech, Biden called for Congress to restore the child tax credit to the much more generous terms granted in 2021 by the Democratic pandemic relief legislation.

Democrats temporarily expanded the child tax credit to $3,000, with $3,600 for children under 6, and crucially made it fully refundable with no income requirements, meaning that the government would simply send checks to families with dependent children with no earnings from work for the full amount of the credit.

Biden called for those terms to be restored. The proposal is not likely to gain traction among Republicans who oppose the lack of a work requirement. Nevertheless, Republicans would likely work with Biden in finding a middle ground, especially given a growing faction in the GOP of more populist, family-focused lawmakers.

During the debate on Biden’s pandemic legislation, Republicans unanimously voted in favor of a proposal by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) that would have boosted the child tax credit to $3,500 per child and $4,500 per child under the age of 6, versus the $2,000 value for minors of all ages under current law.

“Republicans are becoming the party of working-class families,” Rubio told the Washington Examiner last year.

Opioid crisis

Biden also appeared to elicit bipartisan support for his call to help curb the opioid epidemic and further crack down on the trafficking and use of fentanyl, which is a synthetic opioid that has ballooned in popularity and resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people each year.

“Fentanyl is killing more than 70,000 Americans a year. Let’s launch a major surge to stop fentanyl production, sale, and trafficking, with more drug detection machines to inspect cargo and stop pills and powder at the border,” Biden said. “Working with couriers like FedEx to inspect more packages for drugs. Strong penalties to crack down on fentanyl trafficking.”

In addition to increased screening resources to prevent smuggling at the U.S. border, the administration plans to work with Congress to ensure fentanyl-related substances are permanently classified as Schedule I drugs, the most dangerous categorization of illegal substances that carries the heaviest penalties.

Big Tech

Another area where Biden could work with House Republicans is reining in Big Tech. It’s a topic that both parties overlap on, with some of the biggest crusaders against Big Tech calling the Republican Party home. While the president didn’t offer specifics, he drew strong applause throughout the room when he mentioned protecting consumer data.

“We must finally hold social media companies accountable for the experiment they are running on our children for profit. And it’s time to pass bipartisan legislation to stop Big Tech from collecting personal data on kids and teenagers online, ban targeted advertising to children, and impose stricter limits on the personal data these companies collect on all of us,” the president said.

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While Biden notably sparred with Republicans in the chamber over his claim that the GOP wants to use Social Security and Medicare as bargaining chips during the debt ceiling negotiations, he also expressed hope, in a general sense, that some of the agenda items in his speech will garner bipartisan support.

“To my Republican friends, if we could work together in the last Congress, there is no reason we can’t work together and find consensus on important things in this Congress as well,” Biden said. “The people sent us a clear message. Fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict gets us nowhere.”

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Tags: State of the Union, Bipartisanship, News, White House, Joe Biden

Original Author: Zachary Halaschak

Original Location: State of the Union: Which Biden proposals could actually get done with a GOP House?