by Don Keelan

On the night of March 7, 2024, President Biden entered the U.S. Capitol building to deliver one of the longest and most legendary State of the Union addresses in recent memory. 

According to news pundits, the president had two goals to achieve in delivering his address: he was in command of the issues and had the vigor and stamina for four more years in office. The President had additional goals that were not pre-publicized.

The President took aim at the U.S. Supreme Court and the six justices sitting stoically in front of him. The President’s verbal barrage concerning the Court’s recent ruling was unprecedented.

The attack was on the overturning of the long-standing Court ruling, Roe vs.Wade. It was also quite obvious that the President aimed at the Court for its ruling earlier in the week: a 9 to 0 opinion that overturned the Colorado court’s decision to keep former President Donald Trump off that State’s primary ballot voting.

The President continued to break precedent by derogatorily mentioning “his predecessor” not once but 13 times.

The President had control of the room, so why not continue the bashing? The USSC and former President were just the opening salvos, but there were others. 

The pharmaceutical companies, or as the President called them, “big pharma,” were denounced for price gouging as well as the “big landlords.” I can only imagine what it must have been like the next morning for the tens of thousands of Americans who go off each day and work for “big pharma” companies and “big” apartment owners. The President described their employers in a derogatory manner to a world audience. 

The President was not finished. He had to please the far-left wing of his party. A thousand billionaires and large corporations were trashed for not paying their fair share of taxes. The president said that the billionaires pay only 8.2% in taxes. He also noted, “In 2020, some 55 of the biggest corporations made $40 billion in profits and paid zero in federal income taxes.” It was shocking to the Progressives. The President never mentioned how this was accomplished.

The Israeli government did not escape the President’s scorn either, far from it. He had an audience to placate and did something never seen or heard at a SOTU.    

All of the above was secondary to what the President demonstrated to be the most serious problem facing America today: the Snickers candy bar and a bag of chips are not what they used to be. 

The President explained that corporations are being deceptive with their packaging, and Americans no longer get the full-size candy bars they once did. Shrinkflation has taken over. 

The President was right. A Snickers bar in 1970 weighed about 2.07 ounces and cost around 35 cents. Today, the bar weighs 1.86 ounces and costs (at my local deli) $2.25 before sales tax. At the Bennington Walmart, the same bar is $1.32. 

Frankly, I would have been more interested in why we are having our Gulf of Aden naval forces send two million-dollar missiles to take out the Houthis’ thousand-dollar drones. Could he be unaware of the adage, “Shoot the archer, not the arrow?”    

The President made it clear: don’t expect to receive from greedy corporations what you once were able to receive. Mr. President, we do not. We do not expect to get what we once took for granted from Washington: accomplishments, transparency, unity, integrity, and bipartisanship. 

By letting the American people and the world audience know about the seriousness of the smaller Snickers candy bar, the President had to be commended for deflecting our focus on what truly is troubling America: the out-of-control borders, the NY Governor sending her state’s national guard to patrol the NYC subways, the loss of purchasing power of one’s savings, and defining our country’s goals in the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. 

The President did a splendid job at the State of the Union, accomplishing his goals so thoroughly that it was stupendous. 

However, during his 2021 Inaugural Address, he spent a considerable amount of time on one goal: bringing unity back to Washington and America. His State of the Union address was everything but unity, and that was unfortunate.

The author is a U.S. Marine (retired), CPA, and columnist living in Arlington, VT.