Tomorrow evening, President Joe Biden will make his annual State of the Union address.
While the Biden White House has had an impressive track record of victories for the American people so far, we can’t help but ponder how much stronger the state of our union would be if not for Kyrsten Sinema’s years of obstruction and interference, limiting President Biden’s agenda.
“President Biden and Congressional Democrats deserve a lot of credit for what they’ve accomplished. But the truth is, the state of our union would be stronger if Kyrsten Sinema hadn’t stood in the way,” said Sacha Haworth, senior advisor and spokesperson for the Replace Sinema PAC.
No thanks to Sinema, Democrats and President Biden have been able to secure a lot of wins for Americans since the last State of the Union. But a great deal of President Biden’s agenda got left on the chopping block, in part because of Sinema.
President Biden initially proposed broad investments for his jobs and families agenda. Ultimately, Congress passed major pieces of his agenda via the Inflation Reduction Act, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and other legislation – but several important pieces of the President’s agenda to help American families were left behind.
Following Sinema’s opposition, here are a few of the President’s proposals that failed to pass despite Democrats controlling both Houses of Congress:
- Universal pre-K
- Paid family leave
- Home care for seniors and disabled Americans
- Free community college
- Affordable child care
- More funding for job training
- More funding for school meals
- Climate Civilian Corps
If not for Sinema, Democrats would have been able to pass tax increases on the wealthy and big corporations to pay for various initiatives that would improve the lives of everyday Americans.
Instead, she chose to block the IRA until Democrats dropped the provision that would have closed the carried interest tax loophole from the bill. She saved Wall Street $18 billion per year in tax breaks — and in return, she raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions, just last year alone.
And of course, so much more important legislation to strengthen our union has been blocked in the past two years because of the filibuster — the racist procedural relic that Sinema has protected at all costs:
- The Women’s Health Protection Act or other legislation to restore Roe v. Wade
- Voting rights legislation including the John Lewis Act
- The Equality Act to protect LGBTQ Americans
- Immigration reform
- Universal background checks
- Assault weapon ban
- Paycheck Fairness Act
- The DISCLOSE Act pertaining to dark money
- The CROWN Act to ban hair discrimination against Black Americans
Democrats have gotten a lot done without Sinema’s help. But there’s so much more President Biden wanted to get done – that if not for Sinema, would be improving people’s lives right now.
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