Members of Congress from North Texas react to President Biden's State of the Union
NORTH TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) – On the day after his State of the Union speech, President Joe Biden hit the road, traveling to Wisconsin, a key battleground state, to spread his economic message.
He touted high-paying union jobs he said will be created by the infrastructure bill passed by Democrats and Republicans.
During his address before Congress Tuesday night, the President spoke about job growth. "The unemployment rate at 3.4%, a 50 year low. Near record low unemployment for Black and Hispanic workers."
After the speech, Democrats in Congress from North Texas gave the President a thumbs up.
U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, D-TX 33rd District said, "I liked that he talked about the unemployment rate, the lowest it's been since 1969. I thought that was a really good bipartisan line. I like the fact that he talked about 800,000 manufacturing jobs created, jobs that pay good money for the American people."
U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-TX 32nd District said, "I think we heard an optimistic President talking about some of the historic accomplishments he made in the past two years, many of them bipartisan coming out of the Covid pandemic, getting the country back to work."
But a CBS News poll continues to show Americans remain most concerned about gas prices and inflation.
The poll shows a majority of Americans believe Biden's policies have made gas prices and inflation worse.
The President said both are improving. "Here at home, inflation is coming down. Here at home gas prices are down $1.50 a gallon since their peak. Food inflation is coming down. Inflation has fallen every month for the last six months while take home pay has gone up."
Republicans say Americans are still feeling the effects of record high levels of both during the past year.
U.S. Rep. Keith Self, R-TX 3rd District said, "The American people are hurting at the kitchen table. They know better than to believe what President Biden said tonight because they're feeling the pain of this. He can say things are well, but the American people know they're not well."
The President also urged members of Congress to pass his comprehensive immigration reform plan and said his new policy along the southern border is working. "We launched our new border plan last month, unlawful migration from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela has come down 97% as a consequence of that. But America's border problems won't be fixed until Congress acts."
Republicans strongly disagree and say the President's policies have created an open border.
U.S. Rep. Pat Fallon, R-TX 4th District said, "We have never had a month in our history of over 200,000 illegal border crossings, ever. We've had ten months in a row of over 200,000 in December. We've had five million people who've crossed the border, we don't know who these folks are under his watch."
Regarding the polls, the Real Clear Politics average shows President Biden's overall job approval rating at 44% and 51% disapprove.
His speech comes weeks before he's expected to announce he's running for re-election.
