WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden underscored the importance of unification in his first State of the Union address on Tuesday, offering a “Unity Agenda” consisting of beating the opioid epidemic, improving mental health care and helping students make up for learning gaps due to COVID-19.
Hours earlier, U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., highlighted education concerns, including learning loss, during an event with House GOP leadership dubbed “The Real State of the Union.”
“We will do everything we can to not only unmask our kids, to make sure our schools stay open, but make sure that every kid no matter where you’re from, no matter what your ZIP code is that you have greater choice and educational opportunity,” Stefanik said.
She reiterated her support for school’s to have more discretion on mandates and underscored the importance of expanding broadband access.
“An issue that my district in upstate New York faces is when there was remote learning (is that) a huge amount of our community in rural towns and villages did not have access to rural broadband,” she said. “So when we talk about families and students that are falling through the cracks … it’s the people who already are at a disadvantage.”
Biden offered a similar opinion Tuesday night, noting that schools are open and they should continue to be.
“Our kids need to be in school,” Biden said. “And with 75 percent of adult Americans fully vaccinated and hospitalizations down by 77 percent, most Americans can remove their masks, return to work, stay in the classroom and move forward safely.”
Stefanik, along with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Republican Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and seven other Republican members of Congress, held their event to highlight topics they worried would not be addressed by Biden, including unlawful immigration, inflation and COVID-related mandates.
Stefanik’s first concern raised was about securing the border, particularly due to an increased fentanyl trade causing soaring numbers of drug overdoses.
“One of the crises that I hear about in my district is the border crisis,” Stefanik said. “And we believe that every state, every community in this country is a border state and a border community.”
One advocate who spoke at the Republicans’ event, Kristy Dyroff, said she lost her son to an overdose. Her son, Wesley, suffered an injury from football, and went to a doctor which “began an increasingly slippery slope of pain pills.” He overdosed after unknowingly purchasing fentanyl.
Biden said the U.S. must increase funding for addiction prevention, treatment and recovery, as well as “stop the flow of illicit drugs by working with state and local law enforcement to go after the traffickers.”
Biden’s speech had moments of clear bipartisanship, with applause crossing aisles as he raised several key topics, such as U.S. support for Ukraine.
“I’m hopeful that this speech will be a unifying moment for Congress and our country, and that we can take this time to reflect on how we can work best together to meet this moment and best serve the American people,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. told reporters earlier Tuesday.
While Gillibrand was looking forward to hearing Biden speak on a range of topics, she particularly emphasized the bipartisan infrastructure law, noting the infrastructure improvements New York is expected to see as a result.
She also said she was interested in hearing Biden’s plans to support veterans — especially those who were exposed to burn pits during their service.
“I’m grateful that the House is getting ready to vote on the Honoring our PACT Act, which will offer presumptive VA benefits to service members who have deployed and have illnesses due to exposure from burn pits and other toxins,” Gillibrand said. “I know that this is an issue close to President Biden’s heart, so I’m ready to work with him to deliver on our promise and to those who give so much to our nation.”
Gillibrand told Times Union that she is hopeful about strengthening both healthcare infrastructure and the U.S. supply chain in order to combat future pandemics.
“We need the next generation of health care workers,” she said. “We also need to have our domestic supply chains in order particularly for PPE. We can’t be buying masks made in China, we need to make them here. We can’t be buying ventilators made somewhere else, we need to make them here.”
“So we need to have full control of our supply chain. And we need to work on using the Defense Production Act proactively to make sure we have that supply chain in order here that will prepare us for our next pandemic,” she added.
During his speech, Biden acknowledged that the pandemic disrupted global supply chains and highlighted the importance of bringing manufacturing to the U.S.
“Instead of relying on foreign supply chains, let’s make it in America,” Biden said of manufacturing broadly.
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