Romney Comments on the President’s State of the Union Address

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) made the following comments after President Biden’s State of the Union address. A high-quality video version of his remarks can be found here.

On military investment and spending:

Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine is at the forefront of our minds. The world is witnessing the strength and resolve of the people of Ukraine. The President has successfully brought together our friends and allies to coordinate a unified and powerful response to Putin’s actions. That being said, I had hoped to hear the President address the investment needs of our military and ways to strengthen our national defense. With the nefarious actions of Russia and Putin, and the rising threat of China, it’s critical that the U.S. remain the world’s top military. And that’s not going to happen if we don’t continue to invest in our military. And speaking of China: Yes, Russia is the problem of today. But we must not forget that China is operating in the background and remains the problem of tomorrow. The President only mentioned China twice in his speech tonight. We must not fail to acknowledge that China is on a quest to become the world’s economic, military, and geopolitical superpower. Nearly every strategic decision we make must be looked at with the lens of our competition with China.

On inflation and the budgetary crisis the U.S. is heading toward:

Tonight, the President acknowledged that inflation is crippling hardworking families. Adding all of this new government spending, however, will only worsen the inflation problem. It was caused, in large part, by the totally unnecessary COVID relief package Democrats passed a year ago. We have got to get our spending under control—we cannot spend more than we take in. Reining in our national debt and deficit is one of the most important things we can do as a Congress—and it starts with looking at our entitlement spending and shoring up our federal trust funds to ensure programs like Social Security and Medicare exist for future generations.

On energy production for the U.S. and our allies:

My Democrat friends keep talking about the Green New Deal and alternative energy sources. I’m a proponent of green energy, but one of the things this past week has reminded us of is that we cannot be reliant on countries like Russia for our energy. We must continue to take advantage of our energy resources for our own well-being, but also for our friends and allies around the world.

On working on a bipartisan basis:

President Biden pledged to unify the country when he came into office, and reiterated that pledge tonight. Getting bipartisan legislation signed into law is fundamental to that pledge. The bipartisan infrastructure bill is evidence of the good that can come for our country when Republicans and Democrats work together. We delivered historic investments in our country’s physical infrastructure without adding trillions to our debt. We must continue to work together on a bipartisan basis to tackle the real problems Americans are facing. I was pleased to hear President Biden outline possible areas for bipartisan cooperation and I hope we can come together to tackle inflation, family policies like the child tax credit, and shoring up American energy resources.