- President Biden on Tuesday highlighted his administration's efforts to slash the federal deficit.
- "By the end of this year, the deficit will be down to less than half what it was before I took office," he said.
- Sen. Manchin continues to block much of Biden's spending agenda, citing fears that new spending will inflate the deficit.
President Joe Biden painted himself in a hawkish light during his first formal State of the Union address, pointing out estimates that the government deficit will drop dramatically through 2022.
"By the end of this year, the deficit will be down to less than half what it was before I took office," Biden said.
"The only president ever to cut the deficit by more than one trillion dollars in a single year."
It was a message meant to win over a single Democratic lawmaker: Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. He's repeatedly raised concerns about the growing federal deficit in the wake of the pandemic.
He told Insider last month that he was focused on reducing the gap between what the government spends and takes in. "That's the purpose that we have in this. We have to basically get our financial house in order," Manchin told Insider in February. "That's the whole purpose of reconciliation."
Biden also tried pitching a new agenda aimed at combating rising inflation and tamping down costs in childcare and healthcare. But it seemed to land flat with the conservative West Virginia Democrat. He told reporters after the speech: "I've never found out that you can lower costs by spending more."
Biden also threw some jabs at the Trump administration and its handling of the deficit. He criticized the prior administration's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was estimated by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget to have added $2.3 trillion to the federal deficit.
The president also knocked the Trump White House's lax approach to financial regulation and announced the Justice Department will soon appoint a chief prosecutor for pandemic fraud.
"The previous administration not only ballooned the deficit with those tax cuts for the very wealthy and corporations, it undermined the watchdogs," Biden said. "We're going after the criminals who stole billions in relief money meant for small businesses and millions of Americans."