1 State Of The Union Address Is Tonight
President Joe Biden will give his State of the Union Address this evening in front of a new Speaker of the House who has already expressed his frustration and disappointment with how the Democrats are running things. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave his “prebuttal” to Biden’s speech last night, getting out ahead of some of the issues the president is expected to address. On the top of that list was the debt ceiling. McCarthy said angrily, "President Biden wants Congress to raise the debt limit yet again … without a single, sensible change to how government spends your hard-earned money. None. Does that sound responsible to you?" The Speaker has said in the past that decreasing funding for social security and Medicare are “off the table,” but no plan has been laid out as of yet. Other topics Biden is expected to discuss are unemployment, his Build Back Better plan, and a special surtax on billionaires. Biden will have to walk a fine line during his speech tonight, taking care to not to come across as intentionally divisive. What’s more, the speech could impact the future of the next election. Peter Wehner, who wrote speeches for former President George W. Bush, says "This speech is undoubtedly being seen in the White House as part of the reelect effort. And what that means is this is a kind of speech that begins to lay out the broad contours of a reelection campaign."
2 White House Says There May Have Been More "Spy Balloons" During Last Administration
New information shows that this isn’t the first time a high-altitude balloon made its way across the U.S. A US military intelligence report from last year says there were such sightings in Hawaii and Florida during the Trump administration. The April 2022 report, titled “People’s Republic of China High-Altitude Balloon,” found a Chinese spy balloon “circumnavigated the globe” in 2019. The assessment also said China has “deployed multiple HABs [high altitude balloons] that can operate at 65,000ft – 328,000 ft and for months at a time.” The White House calls the balloon “unacceptable” and press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said yesterday that China's irresponsible actions were visible to Americans and the world. She said the Biden administration will continue to keep open lines of communication with China and it's up to the country on what kind of relationship it wants to have with the U.S.
3 Austin Residents Are Still Without Power
More than one thousand Austin Energy customers are still in the dark, thanks to last week's ice storm. Austin Energy General Manager Jackie Sergent says the goal is to get the power back on to everybody by this Sunday, barring any complications. Sargent apologized for the delay in getting the power back on at a news conference. But she made sure residents knew it was the fault of the weather, saying they are dealing with "hurricane-level devastation" and that most of the outages are complex and take time to repair. Governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration Saturday for three counties. State funding and resources will now be allocated to these Central Texas counties.