Congress probably won’t do most of the things Biden is requesting
Biden is going to call on Congress to do a lot in his speech -- he’ll talk about the issues he thinks are ripe for action and the policies he wants Congress to prioritize. But lawmakers probably won’t follow through on most of them.
According to an analysis of legislation passed after every State of the Union address since 1965, conducted by political scientists Donna Hoffman and Allison Howard, Congress only fully enacted 24.3% of a president’s requests, on average, and partially enacted another 13.8%.
In some years -- like 2016 and 2020 -- none of the requests were acted on. So even if Biden makes big, bold proposals for Congress, don’t expect most of them to become reality.
-FiveThirtyEight’s Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux