LARRY KUDLOW: Biden's State of the Union was a third-rate huckster speech

The star of the show in last night's State of the Union festivities was certainly not Joe Biden, who gave a third-rate huckster speech, cherry-picking phony numbers, quoting meaningless GOP backbencher statements about Social Security and Medicare and mostly going through the usual big government socialist, left-wing Democratic wish list of wild spending plans; government mandates and controls; taxing entrepreneurial success; taxing business; taxing the stock market; a regulatory assault on pharmaceuticals, tech companies and banks, dictating resort fees that even he admitted aren't really resorts (I think he meant Motel 6); cable, internet, cell phone companies; tickets to sporting events; airline baggage and dissing non-compete employment contracts; giving the teachers union another pay raise; restoring the full child tax credit with no work requirements and on and on and on.   

Biden scratched every radical left-wing itch for the Democratic Party. Fortunately, none of these new proposals are going to go through with a Republican House, but really, if somebody took a pen and pencil and an adding machine and added all this stuff up, who knows? He could've been talking about another $5 trillion in debt on the federal books, on top of the $5 trillion he's already enacted.   

I mean, the whole theatrical bit about not touching Social Security and Medicare, which GOP leaders have said many times is off the table now, was really a smoke screen, because Biden basically said, "I want an unconditional clean debt increase with no spending cuts or reforms." He never mentioned his visit with Kevin McCarthy, or whether there's going to be any follow-up. I mean, the Social Security-Medicare bit was pure hucksterism. Democratic pap! It’s continuing today.  

Meanwhile, Biden's spending frenzy has increased the cost of living by 14% over the past two years. That's the biggest two-year jump since Jimmy Carter. Blue-collar working folks have suffered the most, with a huge decline in living standards coming to roughly $15 a week, or $60 a month, all that adjusted for rising inflation. Real wages fell 1.4% last year — that's the biggest drop since 2011.   

DESANTIS RIDICULES BIDEN'S OFF SCRIPT OIL AND GAS COMMENTS AT STATE OF THE UNION, SLAMS ENERGY POLICY 

Take-home pay for working folks has been falling steadily for two years. That's why Biden's polls are so low and that continues as the soft underbelly of Biden's failing economy. Even his own Fed chairman said this week that inflation continues and will require higher interest rates that will do even more damage to the middle class.   

The overall U.S. economy grew by a meager 1% last year, with a 6.5% inflation rate. That rate was actually lower than the 9%+ inflation earlier in the year and of course Biden blames Trump, who handed him a 1.4% inflation rate with a 6.5% GDP growth rate.  

Biden blames Putin, pandemics, Big Oil, rich people, large corporations. I mean, the list is endless. Just two quick thoughts here.Biden can blame Big Oil and their profits, but it was Biden's own policies, his war against fossil fuels, that choked off oil and gas production, which itself was a primary cause of the spike in prices, which, yes, led to higher profits.   

The dirty little secret, of course, is that Biden's EPA, his Interior Department and his Energy Department won't allow permitting for drilling, pipelining, refining or new LNG terminals.   

Biden is spending hundreds of billions of dollars on electric cars, but just the other day his Interior Department stopped a permit for mineral drilling and mining in Minnesota’s Iron Range near Lake Superior. This is potentially the biggest source of copper, nickel and lithium that go into batteries for electric vehicles. So, the Biden Administration stopped it, handing a gift to China and penalizing American companies once again. It's a perfect example of left-wing policies that defeat the purpose of legislation.  

Biden claims he's the manufacturing president and then phonies up a number of 800,000 new jobs that doesn’t include the 2020 COVID shutdowns. Actually, in his two years, manufacturing jobs have increased by 200,000, not 800,000. 

The index of manufacturing production fell in last year's fourth quarter, a bad omen. Meanwhile, Trump's pre-COVID two-year manufacturing record was an increase of 467,000 jobs. So, this was more huckstering blarney from Biden.   

Now, the star of the show was not Joe Biden. It was Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She gave a remarkable, riveting, high-content speech that was extraordinarily well-delivered.   

Sarah says: "I'm for freedom, he's for government control. At 40, I'm the youngest governor in the country. At 80, he's the oldest president in American history. I'm the first woman to lead my state. He's the first man to surrender his presidency to a woke mob that can't even tell you what a woman is." 

SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS: In the radical left’s America, Washington taxes you and lights your hard-earned money on fire, but you get crushed with high gas prices, empty grocery shelves and our children are taught to hate one another on account of their race, but not to love one another or our great country. Whether Joe Biden believes this madness or is simply too weak to resist it, his administration has been completely hijacked by the radical left. The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left. The choice is between normal or crazy." 

There you have it: normal or crazy. Terrific work, Sarah. Sarah Huckabee Sanders puts straight the Biden untruths with this.

SANDERS: President Biden inherited the fastest economic recovery on record, the most secure border in history — cheap, abundant, home-grown energy, fast-rising wages, a rebuilt military and a world that was stable and at peace, but over the last two years, Democrats destroyed it all. Despite Democrats’ trillions in reckless spending and mountains of debt, we now have the worst border crisis in American history.

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That’s called straight talk. That’s called factually straight talk. Now, Sarah told a riveting story about a surprise Christmas trip to visit troops in Iraq that she herself was on. As I say, the president and the first lady was there. It was riveting. Sarah is a great storyteller. In fact, folks, effective speeches are really about credible storytelling. Joe Biden couldn't do it last night. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders did.   

That by itself is the big story from the State of the Union evening. Save America. Restore freedom. Stop big government socialism.