EDITORIAL: Biden speech offers no hint of a course correction

The State of the Union address, dating back to Bill Clinton, has become a laundry list of policy proposals intended to communicate to the American people that the president cares … really cares. President Joe Biden’s speech on Tuesday was no different.

Mr. Biden struck all the right notes on Ukraine, as the West — particularly Germany — has experienced an uncomfortable yet vital epiphany in the wake of the Russian invasion. Only strength and action will deter such aggression, and Mr. Biden’s mission over the coming weeks will be to keep this worldwide coalition acting in unison and to ramp up the pressure on Putin.

Domestically, the president left much to be desired. Mr. Biden lurched from topic to topic, with no subject too mundane not to warrant federal attention. Social media ads, nursing home treatment, cancer research, transgender students — all got a shout out. Mr. Biden attempted to tamp down the damage that his party’s progressive wing has wrought with its “defund the police” nonsense, but it’s too little, too late. He also touted economic progress during his first year, but that’s desperate political spin.

In fact, gasoline prices are soaring past $4 a gallon and inflation is at its highest level in 40 years, which has cast a malaise over the economy that eclipses job growth and low unemployment. A more detailed explanation of how he intends to fight rising prices would have been appropriate. Yet the president took no responsibility for our current condition and continued to promote his stalled multitrillion-dollar spending bill, which would exacerbate the pain Americans are feeling at the pump and the supermarket.

This disconnect, unfortunately, has become a frustrating trait of the Biden presidency. The president’s efforts to appease the hard left often leaves his agenda at war with iself. Mr. Biden does everything he can to shackle the U.S. energy industry as a sop to greens and global warming, but then he begs OPEC to drill, baby, drill as gasoline prices become a political liability. He and congressional Democrats dump trillions of dollars into a hot economy in order to buy votes and then act flabbergasted that they stand accused of resurrecting inflation.

His speech offered more examples. Mr. Biden took credit for the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed last year, yet his administration has rolled back efforts to thin the red tape that delays such projects. In addition, a Biden executive order demands “project labor agreements” on federal infrastructure work, a payback to Big Labor that drives up costs with no concurrent increase in quality. These barriers ensure that many of the projects — if they’re ever built — will be tied up for years or even decades.

Mr. Biden endured a tough first year. But his Tuesday address gave no indication of a course correction. Perhaps the American people will demand one come November.