[rich76]

Claim: The economy keeps growing more and more.

Fact: President Biden’s economic record continually falls short of expectations, and for 2022, economic growth was no exception. He has missed forecasts for seven of the last eight GDP reports, and the GDP report for the 4th Quarter of 2022 – which still fell short of expectations – showed that half of the economic growth was due to inventories, while investment was flagging.

Claim: Republicans want to cut Social Security and Medicare.

Fact: President Biden has been making inaccurate accusations about Republicans and fearmongering to scare seniors when Republicans have been clear we are not going to touch their retirement security. Biden has also been making Medicare and Social Security worse off — not protecting them. Medicare premiums have risen for seniors since 2020, while Biden’s ongoing inflation crisis has pushed Social Security further towards insolvency.

Claim: Take-home pay has gone up under President Biden.

Fact: Real wages have decreased 3.5 percent since he took office.

Claim: Democrats’ drug price controls have lowered the price of drugs.

Fact: As President Biden brags about killing cures with Washington price controls that will not be in effect for another three years, studies show his plan will put cures out of reach for most American patients, except the wealthiest.

Claim: Health care has become more affordable.

Fact: Health care affordability is getting worse under Democrats’ health care policies, including under President Biden’s watch. Health insurance premiums have increased 55 percent from 2013-2022, and more than doubled for Obamacare plans in that same period. Even Medicare premiums have increased 14 percent since President Biden took office.

In fact, the Federal Reserve of Dallas expects health care inflation to get even worse in 2023.

2. “We have created a record 12 million new jobs.”

Biden tries to count the jobs backfilled post-pandemic as “new” jobs, but these positions were already created and merely temporarily abandoned due to COVID-19. In reality, Biden has created 2.7 million net new jobs above what Donald Trump created. This job creation is only 60 percent of the 4.5 million net new jobs that Trump created in his first two years in office.

3: “[I have presided over] the largest deficit reduction in American history.”

Again, Biden is trying to take advantage of the moderation from the unique pandemic baseline. In reality, Biden has presided over the largest two-year deficit — $4.2 trillion — in American history. While it’s true the annual deficit is lower than during the once-in-a-century pandemic in 2020, due to the expiration of pandemic-era spending, that’s hardly something to cheer. In fact, Biden’s reckless spending has prevented the deficit from falling below the outrageous $1 trillion mark in 2022.

4: “Two years ago, our economy was reeling.”

President Trump presided over the fastest economic recovery in American history, with the economy expanding by 11 percent in his last six months in office. Unfortunately, instead of simply continuing Trump’s policies and riding his coattails to a rapid resurgence, Biden seized the opportunity to pass several trillion dollars’ worth of unnecessary spending that fueled historic inflation, putting a tremendous burden on small business owners and ordinary Americans.

5: Oil companies have “invested too little of th[eir] profit to increase domestic production and keep gas prices down.”

Oil companies would like to expand production to take advantage of high oil prices, but the Biden administration’s green energy policies make this very difficult. According to Heritage Foundation energy analyst Katie Tubb, the administration “has proposed or finalized regulations that restrict nearly every aspect of the oil industry: financing and private-sector investment, exploration and production, pipeline construction and operation, and consumer use.” Biden has issued the fewest drilling permits since the end of World War II. As a result, oil production is still lower than before the pandemic, and gas prices are far higher.

6: “Now, thanks to all we’ve done, we’re exporting American products.”

The same day as the State of the Union address, the government released 2022 trade figures showing the country hit a record trade deficit of almost $1 trillion last year. That’s up 12.2 percent compared to 2021, precisely the opposite direction of Biden’s claim. This unprecedented trade deficit is a direct consequence of Biden’s bad policies, including climate and labor overregulation, that make it expensive to manufacture goods in America.

7: The wealthy don’t “pay their fair share.”

This stale Democrat talking point seems to make it into every stump speech. But it couldn’t be further from the truth. The top 1 percent of highest-earning Americans pay nearly 50 percent of the nation’s income taxes — about twice their “share” of national income. According to a WalletHub analysis, the top 100 American corporations pay an effective tax rate of nearly 20 percent. (Smaller businesses pay even more.) These liabilities don’t include the high tax bills paid by companies’ shareholders and executives. The American tax system is one of the most progressive in the developed world, with job creators paying far more than their fair share, despite Democrats’ nonstop claims to the contrary.