What Should Our Priorities Be in 2023?

America faces formidable challenges in the year ahead.  To ensure American prosperity and security for years to come, conservatives must clarify our priorities and deliver good outcomes for the American people. We learned after the midterm elections that celebrity and social media commentary won’t get it done. Instead, we need to develop real solutions focused on these core issues: education, the economy, defense, immigration, and confronting real external threats, such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

America’s educational system is, potentially, our greatest advantage, for it enables each new generation of young Americans – regardless of class, race, or gender – to compete and succeed with their peers.  But today, our educational system – controlled in large part by unions and activists – is in desperate need of fundamental change. The National Assessment of Educational Progress released the Nation’s Report Card for 2022: It recorded the largest-ever drop in mathematics scores.  American students are falling behind their international peers in reading and science, too.  To reverse this trend, we must put students and their parents first, always ensuring good teachers are rewarded and supported for their excellent work, and keep toxic, woke ideology out of our schools.  And we must be willing to confront the entities who stand against this mission.

President Biden said in late 2021 that America was “experiencing the strongest economic recovery in the world,” but the past year showed no indication that this was the case.  2022 was not a year of economic recovery; it was a year many Americans – especially working and middle-class families – struggled to make ends meet due to the highest levels of inflation in four decades and soaring gas prices.  Biden’s “Inflation Reduction Act” only made inflation worse, and his choice to deplete 40% of our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a critical supply meant to be tapped only in a true emergency, was a purely political move that made America weaker and did nothing to solve our energy problems in the long run.  In 2023, the new Republican-controlled House of Representatives must hold this Administration accountable for its backward economic policies and champion American energy independence.

Economic security is but one facet of our national security, though.  Across every branch of our armed services, America’s military faces a recruitment crisis.  The Army – in which I served during the final years of the Cold War – fell about 15,000 soldiers short of its recruitment goal.  The Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps expect to either miss or just barely hit their recruitment goals, but only by dipping into their delayed-entry lists.  The reasons for this crisis merit our immediate attention in 2023.  The spread of woke policies – for instance, the Marine Corps recently stated that it is considering banning recruits from addressing superior officers as “sir or “ma’am” – across our military threatens the cohesion, strength, and readiness of our armed forces. We cannot ask young men and women who sign up to defend America to affirm that their country’s founding was irretrievably racist, or to only view their fellow soldiers through the narrow prisms of race, gender, or sexual orientation.  If we want to fix our recruitment crisis, as well as restore pride and honor to our branches of service, we must ensure that in America’s military, there is only one standard: excellence.

We must also secure our southern border.  More than 2 million illegal immigrants entered our country in fiscal year 2022, a new record, with over half a million more “got-aways.”  Since Joe Biden took office, over 5 million illegal immigrants have entered the United States. 5 million – my home state of Kansas has a total population of just 3 million. That’s the magnitude of this crisis, and it’s going to get far worse if Biden makes good on his intent to repeal Title 42, a key Trump Administration policy.  The Department of Homeland Security has already projected that the numbers we’ve seen thus far could nearly triple if Title 42 is rescinded.  Our border states are simply not equipped to deal with an influx of that magnitude, but Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won’t even visit the border themselves.  House Republicans must make addressing the crisis on our southern border a top priority in the new year.

Finally, we must continue to confront the Chinese Communist Party in every way.  Congress took a strong, bipartisan step forward with the passage of the CHIPS Act – which I advocated for – along with other legislation meant to slow China’s technological and economic development, and I hope it continues.  However, we cannot forget that Biden and his officials have repeatedly allowed climate change-driven policy to overshadow this essential work.  Take the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which included outrageous handouts for the solar energy industry despite Team Biden being well aware that Chinese manufacturers dominate 80 percent of the market for solar panels; or climate czar John Kerry’s subordination of our human rights policies to his vaunted climate change endeavors. We cannot confront the CCP with half-measures; we cannot on the one hand pursue policies that hinder its objectives, while on the other promote policies that enrich it.  In 2023, we must call on House Republicans to focus legislative priorities on confronting the CCP, while excising legislation that does the opposite.

There are, of course, many other things we should pursue in 2023.  We must continue to empower Ukraine’s defense while demanding that our European allies do more to confront Putin in their own backyard.  The first meeting I had as Secretary of State was focused on getting our NATO allies to spend more on their defense – had our allies met those expectations, and had they not been dependent on Putin for their energy, we could have better deterred Putin.  And as we insist that our NATO allies increase their commitment, we must also remind them not only of the threat Russia poses, but of the threat posed to the free world by the growing alignment among the likes of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

The 2022 midterm elections were a good year for strong leaders who pursued a real conservative agenda. If the Biden Administration cannot deliver on these fundamental priorities next year, we should make the case to the American people that it will be time to replace those policies.