Biden hits McCain on pocketbook issues

Sen. Joe Biden campaigns in Des Moines (Photo: Flickr/Barackobamadotcom)

Calling Iowa his “second political home,” Sen. Joe Biden discussed flood recovery efforts, taxes, health care, and the Republican ticket in front of a crowd of several hundred at the State Fairgrounds in Des Moines Monday.

It was the Democratic vice presidential nominee’s first visit to the Hawkeye state since losing the Iowa Caucuses and ending his presidential bid.

Early in his speech, Biden said he would support Iowa officials’ efforts to divert more federal money to flood recovery efforts. “I promise you not only are we not going to forget you this fall when we go back to wrap up this congress,” he said, “but I promise you in [an] Obama-Biden administration, we will never forget people who have been knocked down.”

The Delaware senator also made light of the reputation Iowa voters have for being spoiled. An audience member asked him to speak more clearly, because the acoustics in the large open hall created an echo, making it difficult to hear. “I know I’m in Iowa. You still instruct me. You are the most outrageous people I have ever met in my life. Only in Iowa would I come and be told how to speak and I love being back and being instructed,” he said.

Sen. Joe Biden campaigned in a large acoustic space (Photo: Flickr/Barackobamadotcom)

“It’s a good suggestion. Can you all hear me now? All right. Well, thank you very much.”

Biden, whom many pundits see as Sen. Barack Obama’s key to winning white, working-class voters, spoke at length about the economy. Republicans Sen. John McCain, Gov. Sarah Palin, and President George W. Bush, he said, are “out of touch” with the state of the economy.

Speaking about the Republican party’s national convention in St. Paul last week, Biden said, “I didn’t hear a word about health care, I didn’t hear about how we’re going to help our children get to and stay in college. I didn’t heard a word from dependence on foreign oil and bring down prices. I didn’t hear the word retirement mentioned. I didn’t hear the word pension mentioned. I didn’t hear the phrase middle class mentioned.”

The Democratic vice presidential nominee also contrasted his ticket’s tax plan with McCain’s. Perhaps recognizing the natural disadvantage Democrats face in the minds of voters on taxes, he spoke in absolute terms. “We’re not going to raise your taxes,” he said. The Democrats’ tax plan would provide tax relief to 95 percent of income-earning families, but it would effectively increase taxes on the highest income Americans.

(Photo: Flickr/Barackobamadotcom)

“John McCain wants to continue to provide $200 billion in tax cuts to corporations yet he leaves out 100 million working families,” he said, and he argued that McCain actually planned to increase taxes on workers by taxing employer health care benefits.

He called another aspect of McCain’s health care plan “an absolute bridge to nowhere,” referring to the infamous federal earmark to build a $400 million in a sparsely populated area of Alaska, which Gov. Sarah Palin initially supported but now opposes.

Repeatedly, Biden connected McCain and Palin to the current Republican administration.

“I find it absolutely fascinating that John McCain and the Republican Party are claiming the mantle of change now,” he said, “after eight years of abject failure.”