Biden goes on offense
Washington (CNN) - The White House launched a new front in the battle for control of the U.S. Congress on Monday, dispatching Vice President Joe Biden to outline his party’s line of attack on the Republican economic agenda.
In a speech at The George Washington University, Biden condemned the Republicans’ approach to everything from health care spending to education, saying that recently his opponents have abandoned the central bargain of an American Democracy, “opportunity for all.”
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“The new Republican Party changed their mind about that bargain,” Biden said. “They adopted an orthodoxy that devalued paychecks. They tilted the tax code in favor of unearned income over earned income, inherited wealth over take home pay.”
Resurrecting some themes from his successful 2012 campaign, Biden focused a big portion of Monday’s speech on the budget put forward by Republican Rep. Paul Ryan and its effect on income inequality, telling the crowd of roughly 300, “this is not your father’s Republican Party.”
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“If I were you, I'd sit there and say, ‘Well this just seems like another political speech, another political fight in Washington, battling over the budget again, the next standoff or the next election, red meat to stir up the troops.’ It's not,” Biden said to a room made up mostly of college students.
“Don't give in to the cynicism here. Don't fall in the trap that none of this really matters or there isn't much of a difference we can make.”
Just as he did while serving as the chief attack dog for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, Biden painted a portrait of the Republican Party as one that is focused on shifting wealth towards those at the very top.
“This massive shift is being largely - not totally - largely driven by this incredibly narrow mindset that presumes that wealthy investors are the sole drivers of the economy, that all employees work solely by the grace of the shareholder's capital gain,” Biden said, explaining “that's what today's Republican Party is all about.”
Republicans were quick to fire back, releasing statements before the Vice President left the room calling his remarks “desperate” and an effort to distract from paltry support for the President’s budget.
“Rather than throwing rocks from the sidelines, President Obama and Vice President Biden should work with Republicans in producing a budget that will lower taxes, restrain spending and create good-paying jobs,” read a statement released by Jahan Wilcox, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
The group responsible for electing Republicans to the House of Representatives also pushed back against the Vice President’s fiery rhetoric, pointing out that the White House’s budget “leaves Obamacare in place, raises taxes, and never, ever balances.”
“This November, voters will see a clear contrast between Republicans who want to replace Obamacare with a patient-centered approach and Democrats who continue to defend this train wreck of a law,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Matt Gorman said in a statement.
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It's amazing how anyone thinks the republican party is the party of fiscal responsibility. they are spendthrifts to the Nth degree and they don't believe in raising the revenue to pay for it. they scream about the deficit now but they're the ones mainly responsible for it. their ideology is penny wise and pound foolish. this has been proven over and over. their sole purpose is to make the rich richer at the expense of the rest of us. the sooner their base wises up to this, the better off we will all be.
They got the old fella out of bed and he's all fired up now!
Republicans appear to have the intellectual curiousity of an amoeba, due to their lack of facts, and their unwillingness to accept truth.
The Republican economic agenda is nothing more than a philosophy of shafting the middle class in order to get more money for the privileged few.
It takes a special level of senselessness for someone who voted twice for the documented economic FAILURE of Bush II, and who then voted against the candidate who saved the country from the 2nd [R]-generated economic depression in the last century, to come on here and vacuously complain about "5 years of economic failure" by the [D]s.
Sure, let's vote against the [D] job and economic growth of the last 5 years, and return to the good old days when the [R] economy hemorrhaged 700,000 job losses per month while we sent men to die to appease the warmongering tendencies of chickenhawks. One must question the genetic health of an individual that would make such a choice.
Biden has always been offensive. He just gets a free pass by the media because he's a Democrat. If a Republican had said the things Biden has said, they'd have been crucified.
Bargain? What bargain that? Nearly 18 Trillion dollar federal debt? 50 Million on Food Stamps. Unemployment about 14 Percent, or to say it another way only about 58 percent in work force. 29 Hour work week. That bargain? People vote for it, people cut own throat. Any more bright ideas? Sorry, would you run that by me one more time? Rich shifting wealth towards the top? Well, if you say so. Lot of Snake Oil here.
And the libs have used the IRS, DOJ, SEC and other agencies to target any non libs who do not nod their head on what ever issue the O has today. The government is hopelessly corrupt regardless of who gets elected.
The mouth that roared is back. We'll have to see if hes a bigger loud mouth than Harry Reid. Sooner or later he'll put his foot in it. Wait for it.
If I can see it as 66 year old businessman/farmer/inventor, this Republican Party is akin to the Dixecrats of old. They do not want to be inclusive. They want to go to back to the Jim Crowe days.
I want smaller more effective government, but this group that is so-called trying purify the party wants to tell me what I can believe religiously. Even Warren Buffet see it!
The De facto leadership of the Republican party is in the hands of the talk show host. There has not been one Republican who has stood up and confront them on a constant bases. Sad, Sad, Sad!
Lacrosse mom, I think I love you. 🙂
“Opportunity for all” doesn't mean "opportunity for half the population to get free what the other half is forced to pay for." It doesn't mean "opportunity for Washington politicians to stick their noses into absolutely everything.
And the "central bargain of an American Democracy" is that the federal government adhere to the role and limits set for it in the Constitution and in exchange we the people and the states will grant them the power necessary to meet the responsibilities the Constitution gives them.
The federal government long ago not just "abandoned" that bargain, they tore it up and stomped on the scraps.
Which, of course, means that we the people and the states are no longer bound by our end of the bargain. If the feds won't play by the Constitutional rules, why should we?
Only 300 students in attendance to hear 0-Bama's chief attack dog?! That does not bode too well for my fellow Democrats. It would not surprise me at all if 80-90% of the students were coerced into attending.
0-Bama's/Biden's philosophy: When your policies (internally/externally) are NOT working and Américans are starting to take the blinders off, attack, tack!!!
Biden should be explaining his and Obama's economic policy and plan. It is nothing more than defection of Obama's failures.
If they were on the right side of things, as they like to tout, they would not need to be on the offense, they'd already be there.
this country is growing too much. i know the unemployment rates are still lagging, but jobs have been gaining about 200 thousand for the past four years without a break, when that ever happened. the financial sector have came roaring back from the dead in 2008. this country is the richest right now in the history of any other country know to man. we've got universal healthcare for crying out loud. this will be the ackiles for dems this election, we are too darn successful. the people are waddling in this country's success, but they are hearing doom doom doom, from the repubs every second of the day, merging fantasy with reality. they are telling the people to look how bad situation is, while they waddle in the money, and sending it overseas to to hide from the tax man. open your eyes folks and stop lessening to all these one sided news programs who only report on negativity and refuse to venture to the side of the mass success of this country's recovery.
I thought joe biden was already offensive?
Biden's plugs have grown too deep.
Frankly the most embarrassing Vice President in some time.