Biden's rural points were on broadband, other infrastructure; on some other topics he exaggerated or lacked context

President Biden spoke in front of Vice President Kamala Harris and
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. (Pool photo by Jacquelyn Martin)

Did President Biden have anything for rural America in his State of the Union speech? And how closely did he stick to the facts?

He used the word "rural" once, in saying the bipartisan infrastructure law is funding projects in all kinds of places: “Urban. Suburban. Rural. Tribal.” Just before that, he mentioned “high-speed internet across America,” and later he said “We're making sure every community in America has access to high-speed internet.” He also announced that all materials in federal construction projects will have to be made in America, including fiber-optic cable that is the standard for high-speed internet.

Another line could be taken as a rural reference: “My economic plan is about investing in places and people that have been forgotten. Amid the economic upheaval of the past four decades, too many people have been left behind or treated like they’re invisible.”

Rural America is the home of extractive industries, and Biden slammed oil companies, noting their record profits and saying “They invested too little of that profit to increase domestic production and keep gas prices down. Instead, they used those record profits to buy back their own stock, rewarding their CEOs and shareholders.” An ad-lib about oil brought derisive laughter from Republicans: “We’re gonna need oil for at least another decade.” Longer than that.

"Some of Biden's claims in the speech were false, misleading or lacking critical context," CNN's Daniel Dale writes. Biden claimed the infrastructre law "funded 700,000 major construction projects," but the actual number is 7,000. The New York Times' analysis repeatedly cited lack of context.

In his Fact Checker column for The Washington Post, Glenn Kessler writes that Biden exaggerated several points, including deficit reduction, U.S. exports, the nation's infrastructure ranking. the effect of recent tax legislation and the number of jobs being created.

Kessler also looks at Biden's claim that "some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset," explaining that word is "inside-the-Beltway lingo for programs terminating automatically on a periodic basis unless explicitly renewed by law. Last year, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, released a 60-page “11-point plan to rescue America” that offered 128 proposals. Buried on Page 39, in a section on government restructuring, was one sentence: 'All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.' Scott’s write-up — which offered few details and had no proposed legislative language — was almost immediately rejected by most Senate Republicans. Scott also said he was being misinterpreted. 'No one that I know of wants to sunset Medicare or Social Security, but what we’re doing is we don’t even talk about it. Medicare goes bankrupt in four years. Social Security goes bankrupt in 12 years,” Scott said on Fox News last March. 'I think we ought to figure out how we preserve those programs. Every program that we care about, we ought to stop and take the time to preserve those programs.'"