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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Vice President
For Immediate Release September 2, 2012


REMARKS BY VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN
AT CAMPAIGN EVENT

West York Area High School
York, Pennsylvania


11:58 A.M. EDT


THE VICE PRESIDENT: Hello, York! (Applause.)

Folks, before we start, I want to know where the state champion baseball team is. (Applause.) There you are. Rog, you're all right, man. That's -- what a great, great honor. I tell you what, man, that's incredible. I wish -- I got in trouble a while ago saying when I was greeting a football team, I was a fairly good baseball and football player in high school, and I said when I went to spring -- excuse me, pre-season practice down in Virginia, I said I'd trade the job to be back playing ball again. And the press made it like I was being serious, but I tell you what -- (laughter) -- I might trade it for the state championship. (Laughter.) Congratulations. (Applause.)

And, Rod, the band instructor, Rod, thank you very much for taking the time. I know -- I know how it excites every band member's parents saying, you're doing something on Sunday. (Laughter.) But thank you so very, very, very much.

And I'm told two very good friends of mine, one extremely close friend, your next congressman, Mark [sic] Cartright is here. Where are you, Mark? You out there somewhere? Where's Mark? There he is. (Applause.) You should be -- where are you? All right, you should have down here with me, but thank you for being here, man.

And I also understand Eugene Pasquale [sic] is here, the next auditor general. (Applause.) There you, Eugene. Thank you, man.

And, Her Honor the Mayor -- where you are, Mayor? Where are you, Kim? (Applause.) I can't see in all these lights, but, Mayor, thanks for the passport. Thanks for letting me back into town. (Laughter.)

Well, I tell you what, it's great to be in York almost heading towards Scranton. We got a little -- got to go a little north and east, but, folks, this -- I'm going to be serious with you a few minutes here. And, first of all, thank you for all showing up on Sunday. It's just a great, great honor to have you all here. And please excuse my back in my presentation. (Applause.) But it's nice knowing you have my back. (Laughter.)

Folks, this country faces the starkest choice in my memory. And now that Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan have been nominated at their conventions, those differences are even more stark.

Congressman Ryan gives absolutely clear definition to Governor Romney's vague commitments he's been making the last year or so. And Congressman Ryan and the congressional Republican Party in the House -- the House Republican Party, they have already -- they have already passed in the House what the Governor promises to do for the nation. So in a strange way, it's like two incumbents running. We don't have to wonder about what he'll do if he's elected. They've already attempted to do it in the House.

And they call their plan new, bold and gutsy. But the neighborhoods I come from in Scranton, and in Claymont, Delaware, and Brandywine Hundred, there's nothing gutsy about giving a trillion dollar tax break to millionaires. There's nothing gutsy about that. (Applause.)

There's nothing bold -- there's nothing bold about turning Medicare into a voucher system in order to pay for it.

AUDIENCE: No!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: And, folks, there's nothing new about this plan. It's not only not new; it's not fair. And it's not right. It won't grow the economy. It didn't do it before. Folks, we've seen this movie before, and we know how it ends. (Applause.) Folks, it ends -- it ends in all those things they lamented so soulfully about at their convention: Lost jobs, that's how it ends, stagnant wages, seeing the equity in your homes evaporate, your retirement accounts drained. It ends in a catastrophe for the middle class.

And Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan are running on a theme, as well. Their theme is: restore the dreams and greatness of this country. But what they're not telling you is that the very plans that the Congressman voted for, for the past 14 years, the very economic policies the Governor supported -- the Governor as businessman supported it, the Governor as governor supported it -- these are the very policies that put America's greatness in jeopardy in the first place. (Applause.)

I found it absolutely startling -- fascinating listening to the parts of the convention I saw. How do they think we got in this place in the first place? (Applause.) How do they think this happened? How do they think we got the greatest recession in the history of the United States short of a depression? It's like my little granddaughter, Hunter's older sister, she'd say: Who did it, Pop, Casper the Friendly Ghost? (Laughter.) I mean where did it come from? Did it just descend from the sky all of a sudden?

Ladies and gentlemen, there's a lot they didn't tell you at their convention. When Congressman Ryan came -- what they didn't tell you, when Congressman Ryan came to the Congress in 1998, during a Democratic administration, America had a balanced budget, the middle class was surging. (Applause.) There's so much they didn't tell you. They didn't say -- what they didn't say was that on the very day we were sworn in, as the President sat behind the desk Resolute on the first day in office, he was handed a bill for that year of a trillion dollar deficit. Nothing he could do about it. The fiscal year was halfway over. The middle class was devastated when we took office. And much of what they did tell you, quite frankly, is not on the level.

Look, you heard Congressman Ryan on Wednesday night -- you heard Congressman Ryan on Wednesday night blame the closing of a GM plant in his hometown of Janesvillle on the President.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Folks, I don't you booing; I need you voting. I don't need you booing. (Laughter and applause.) We need you voting.

So he talked about -- Congressman Ryan said they closed my plant. Well, he was right about one thing, the closing of that plant devastated his community and was devastating for those people who lose their jobs. But what he didn't tell you was that plant in Janesville actually closed while President Bush was still President of the United States of America. (Applause.)

And what neither he -- what neither he nor Romney said, but for the sacrifices the autoworkers made and the courage of a President, all those GM plants would have been closed. (Applause.)

And 200,000 proud men and women back at work on the assembly line, and the plants that feed that assembly line -- 200,000 workers would still be unemployed, not being able to raise their families, and a million -- a million -- Americans would have lost their job. Ladies and gentlemen, GM would not have been reorganized. It would have been liquidated along with Chrysler. And as the CEO of the Ford Motor Company personally told me and has said publicly, without that reorganization, Ford would have been devastated as well because the supply chain would have evaporated. (Applause.)

Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen there's another -- what they didn't tell us, what they didn't say, ladies and gentlemen, they didn't acknowledge -- I didn't hear the Governor say in his speech that he edited -- that he wrote an editorial entitled: Let Detroit Go Bankrupt. Where was that as part of what his philosophy is?

He said, though, later -- he said, if we stepped in to help, GM would be, and I quote, "the living dead." I didn't hear him say that again. What they didn't say is the auto companies -- Ford, General Motors and Chrysler -- have committed to invest another $23 billion dollars in expansion of new plant and equipment. (Applause.)

And by the way -- by the way, they're not doing it the Bain way. Not in Mexico, not in China, not in Vietnam. They're investing $28 billion in the United States of America. (Applause.)

And, folks, let me tell you --

AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: You got it, man. I tell you what, and you know what was most amazing during the convention? They discovered the middle class. (Laughter.) Wasn't that amazing? They discovered the middle class.

Listen to what they said, Congressman Ryan what he said at his convention when he said, "The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves." That's what he said.

So let's look about how they measure this society. Let's look at what he and Governor Romney want to do, and the best way to do that is the way my dad used to say. He'd say when someone would tell, let me tell you what I value, let me tell you what I care about, my dad would say, don't tell me what you value or what you care about, show me your budget, I'll tell you what you value and what you care about. (Applause.)

So, folks, let's look at what they value. Let's look at their budget: massive cuts in Medicaid, throwing 19 million people off of health care, including a million seniors and millions of children; giving seniors a stipend in Medicare, giving them a stipend, a voucher worth less than the Medicare they now have to allow them to go out and shop for insurance to get the best deal they can find; massive cuts in Social Security for future generations; make massive cuts to early education, kick 200,000 kids from working-class families out of Head Start and early education; cut $4.9 billion in elementary and secondary education.

AUDIENCE: No!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: This is the budget. They knock 6.6 million young adults off their parents' health care coverage, as you heard what is happening in most families, including the beautiful woman who introduced me. They put insurance companies back in charge of your health care. No, they do. No, seriously. You eliminate -- they put them back in charge of your health care, allowing them to cut off your coverage when you get sick; or when you hit a limit, which they call your limit, usually at the very most critical time of the expensive care you need as you're fighting to stay alive or keep your parents alive; allowing them to charge once again a different insurance rate for a woman than a man.

So much for helping qualified kids from working-class families. Look what they do? They cut the Pell grants. They cut Pell grants and eliminate tax credits that many of you parents are able to take now to help send your kids to college. They eliminate them.

I'd like to change the quote of the -- of my distinguished colleague, Congressman Ryan, I think the truest measure of a political party is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves. (Applause.)

And, ladies and gentlemen, by that standard, by that standard, it's no contest here. Folks, this is not your father's Republican Party. This is not -- seriously. I worked a long, long time over the years with some really stand-up Republicans, who had disagreements with us, but not like this. The Bob Doles, the Howard Bakers -- so many people who I worked with. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not even Mitt Romney's father's Republican Party. (Applause.)

And, folks, when you press them, when you take a look at -- when you take a look at why they're doing all the things I mentioned, why is it? Well, folks, they're doing it in the service of massive tax cuts to the very wealthy because if they do not provide those, if they were not to make all those Draconian cuts I mentioned here from middle-class and working-class people, it would balloon the deficit out of all proportion, and it would even raise taxes for middle-class folks higher than they're going to raise them now.

Let me give you an example, and I don't want to keep you a long time, but just give you one example. Actually, I'll give you two examples. Of that tax cut -- of that tax cut for the "top 2 percent" that Governor Romney insists and Governor [sic] Ryan and the entire Republican Party to a person I think say they have to keep, of that tax cut, $800 billion of it -- it costs a trillion dollars over 10 years -- $800 billion goes to people who make a minimum of a million dollars.

Now of that -- now, this is the truth. The press is here. All the national press is following me. Everybody can fact-check this. Of that trillion dollar tax cut they want to keep, $500 billion of it goes to only 120,000 families.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's the God's truth: 120 -- I'm sure they're patriotic, decent Americans. But I am also sure that they sure don't need another half-a-trillion-dollar tax cut. (Applause.)
And, folks, to quote President Clinton, these guys are Bush on steroids because here's what they want to do. (Laughter.) On top of maintaining that tax cut -- it's the truth -- they want to add another $250,000-a-year tax cut for everyone making over a million dollars.

AUDIENCE: No!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: So you wonder why they're eviscerating the middle class, and this has a giant price tag -- not only for the deficit -- the nonpartisan group -- there's a group called the Tax Policy Center. It's nonpartisan, it took all their data and it examined it, and here's the conclusion the nonpartisan Tax Policy Group reached, that middle-class families with children as a consequence of their Republican tax policy would have their taxes increase $2,000 a year. Now, guys, forget sort of campaign lines, how can that be fair? How can it possibly be fair to raise the taxes for middle-class families with children by 2,000 bucks and give a half-a-trillion-dollar tax cut to 120,000 families.

Folks, on top of that -- on top of that, Governor Romney says in the first hundred days he'd repeal the Wall Street reforms. He'd let the banks once again write their own rules.

And listen to what he says about foreign policy, you caught some of it in his speech. He said it was a mistake to end the war in Iraq and bring all of our warriors home.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: He said it was a mistake to set an end date for our warriors in Afghanistan and bring them home. He implies by the speech that he's ready to go to war in Syria and Iran.

AUDIENCE: No!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: He wants to move from cooperation to confrontation with Putin's Russia. And these guys say the President is out of touch? Out of touch? Swiss bank account, untold millions in the Cayman Islands, who's out of touch, man? (Applause.)

Look, he's a good family man, but that's a man out of touch. This is no time to turn back. We have to continue to move forward.

AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Folks, I am absolutely certain there's not a single doubt in my mind that we're on the way to rebuilding this country stronger than it was before. (Applause.)

I'm absolutely certain we're on our way to rebuilding the middle class more vibrant than it was before. (Applause.) And the reason I'm certain is because I know you. I know you. Given a half a chance, the American people have never, never, ever, let their country down. Never. (Applause.)

Barack and I believe in you. Ordinary Americans, we believe in you. And guess what? It's never, never, never been a good bet to bet against America. Never, never, never. (Applause.)

So, ladies and gentlemen, join us, help us finish what we started; and with your help, we'll win Pennsylvania, and we'll win this election. (Applause.)

God bless you all and may God protect our troops. Thank you. Thank you. (Applause.)

END 12:20 P.M. EDT