President Joe Biden composed himself in a presidential manner. He spoke with seemingly uncompromised resolve to punish Russia for its brutal attack on Ukraine. Let’s build American infrastructure. End cancer as we know it. We should fund and reform law enforcement, not defund it.

He said much to make Americans feel good. He wants higher wages, more parity between physical and mental health care. Support veterans as “the backbone and spine of our country.”

Sadly, the speech lacked talk of substantive plans to resolve the country’s greatest concerns. He said we need to take on inflation by increasing wages and decreasing prices. We must manufacture and produce more in the United States. We should buy American.

This was apple pie, baseball and a flag served up in his first and last State of the Union speech before a midterm election that might cost his Democratic Party its House and Senate majorities.

Biden disturbingly undermined his visions with a clear lack of sophistication regarding the economy and the way it works. Consider this statement:

“Unlike the $2 trillion tax cut in the previous administration, that benefit of the top 1% of Americans …” Biden said, trashing the tax cuts to praise his COVID-inspired American Rescue Plan.

The overtly pro-Democratic Washington Post long ago gave the 1% claim four-out-of-four Pinocchios – because it is a lie. What Biden said after blasting the tax cuts should raise eyebrows of anyone who took a week of Economics 101 at a community college.

“Ford is investing $11 billion … creating 11,000 jobs across the country. GM is making the largest investment in its history, $7 billion … creating 4,000 jobs in Michigan,” Biden said.

That is mostly because of the 2017 reduction in corporate tax rates from a crushing 35% to 15%.

“We believe this is a positive step toward much-needed U.S. tax reform,” Ford Motor Co. said in a statement in 2017. “Nothing has greater potential to spur American job and economic growth than lower and more competitive U.S. tax rates.”

General Motors wrote of the 2017 tax cuts: “We are encouraged by the administration’s efforts to modernize our tax code.”

Biden promised minimum taxes on corporations in 130 countries, crediting an agreement he demanded at the G7 summit and “other meetings” abroad.

Biden cannot ease the burden of rising prices by forcing higher taxes on consumer goods. To corporations, a tax bill is overhead – just like the payroll, mortgage and utility costs. It is baked into the costs of what they sell.

That goes to another fiction Biden repeated in his speech, saying no one earning less than $400,000 will pay “one penny” more in taxes. Inflation is a tax, and taxes imposed on corporations and the rich are inherently regressive.

While inadvertently proposing higher prices, Biden promised reduced inflation but offered no solution. “Confirm my nominees for the Federal Reserve,” was his plan. The Federal Reserve has one tool for slowing inflation, and that is raising interest rates. That’s another big burden on consumers no less painful than a new tax.

Given the Ukraine war and his command to buy American, much of the audience reasonably expected him to announce a reduction in regulations on American energy production. Nope. Just weatherize homes and drive battery cars.

Biden wants to slow the opioid crisis, never mentioning fentanyl, but promised no immediate crackdown on drugs crossing the border.

Biden looked and sounded like a leader on a basis of style. On more important considerations of substance, the speech was a vacuous disappointment.

Colorado Springs Gazette editorial board