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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Vice President
For Immediate Release September 25, 2012


REMARKS BY VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN
AT A CAMPAIGN EVENT

Chesterfield County Fair
Chesterfield, Virginia


11:04 P.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Hello, Chesterfield! Good to see you all. (Applause.)

AUDIENCE: Joe! Joe! Joe!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you so much. It's so great to be back in Virginia. What a magnificently beautiful state you all have, I tell you. (Applause.) No, it is. It is an incredible state.

Marjorie, thank you for your introduction. What a lovely, lovely lady. I tell you what, man -- (applause) -- if I had more teachers Marjorie, I could have done better. (Laughter.) Thank you, Marjorie, and thank you for the nice comments about my Jill -- I shouldn't say -- about Jill. I am Jill's husband, Joe Biden -- (laughter) -- as everyone after the convention has come to understand. (Laughter.)

Hey, by the way, I -- before I had --

AUDIENCE MEMBER: We love you!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, you're kind to say that. Thank you, thank you. (Applause.) Would you tell my wife that? (Laughter.)

I served -- I had the great honor of serving in the Senate for a long time, with some great Republicans and Democrats from this state -- both the Warners, including -- I got something wrong? Oh, I didn't see your Delaware T-shirt. I'm sorry. I apologize. (Laughter.) I thought I -- it was like my sister Val, you reminded me of my -- like, Joe, you got something on your -- (laughter) -- she was going like this. I didn't know what's going on here. (Laughter.) Whoa, I feel relieved. Hello, Delaware! (Laughter and applause.)

Well, thank you for wearing the Delaware shirt.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: You used to be my senator.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, God love you. I hope you -- (laughter) -- now, are you living down here now? We're just going to have a conversation here, folks. I mean, it's going to -- (laughter.)

Well, when I represented -- I still represent Delaware, but when I represented Delaware all those years in the United States Senate since I was a 29-year-old kid, there are certain people that you work with in the Congress that you know you can always rely on. You know who always will have your back and you know they're always going to stand up, and stand up for the principles they believe in -- even when it's not politically wise sometimes to do it.

And one of those folks I was just hanging out with in the back already spoke to you. I just want to acknowledge him as my friend, ask him to come out -- is Bobby Scott. Bobby. (Applause.) Thanks, Bobby.

Bobby and I worked for years and years, more than either of us want to admit. When I was Chairman of the Judiciary Committee for almost 17 years, or the ranking member, Bobby was the go-to guy on the crime bill, the Violence Against Women Act -- everything that I cared a great deal about. And, Bobby, thank you so much, man. Thank you. (Applause.)

And by the way, for those folks who say we can't get on together these days because of political division, I sat next to Strom Thurmond. No, no, no, no -- and became friends with Strom Thurmond. Together we passed a crime bill. Together we passed the Violence Against Women Act. Together we extended the Voting Rights Act. So don't tell me you can't work with people and compromise. (Applause.)

I was Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee for years. My counterpart was Jesse Helms. Jesse Helms and I disagreed on almost everything, but before -- (laughter) -- no, seriously. But this is important to know about why America has to -- we have to come together. What happened was Jesse Helms, the last part of his career, Jesse Helms worked with me, I worked with Jesse to fund the arrearages of the United Nations. Anybody ever think Jesse Helms would do that? Jesse Helms worked to help, at the end of his career, to deal with AIDS in Africa.

So my point is, don't listen to these voices who say compromise is a dirty word. There can be no people further apart ideologically than Strom and I were, or Jesse and I were, but yet, for the good of the nation, we were able to make compromise.

And, ladies and gentlemen, speaking of the good of the nation, it's a genuine honor -- and I mean a genuine honor -- to have shared this platform today with a true hero, a man who fought hard to be able to fight hard for his country in the air. Ladies and gentlemen, let's give another applause to Colonel Taylor. (Applause.) You're a good man, Colonel. You're a good man. You're made of that great stuff.

Folks, look, let me get to the point here. This country faces what I think is the starkest choice for President at least in my memory. And now that Governor Romney has picked Congressman Ryan -- and by the way, they're both good, decent men. They're good family men, they're good -- no, no, let's -- we fundamentally disagree with them. We fundamentally disagree, but now that the Governor has picked the Congressman, what has happened is it's given -- Congressman Ryan has given a clear meaning to the vague assertions that Governor Romney has been talking about up to this point. It's almost like two incumbents running in a sense. (Laughter.) No, no, no, I'm being very earnest here, folks.

Look, the Ryan budget, as Bobby Scott and every congressman can tell you -- Democrat and Republican -- has already passed through the House of Representatives with all the Republicans voting for it. So you don't have to wonder what Governor Romney is -- to give the nation. Just look at what the Ryan budget is and already been -- it was blocked in the Senate, and we would not let it pass. But you don't have to wonder. (Applause.) You don't have to wonder. You don't have to wonder what the choices are -- it's crystal clear.

And President Obama and I have a fundamentally different vision for America, and a fundamentally different value set of how to get America to where it has to be. Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan, on almost every issue, much of what they say, quite frankly, is not accurate. It's not -- no, no, here's the thing. It's what they don't tell you that is telling. It's what they don't tell you.

And as an illustration, let's take a look about how they talk about the national debt. If you watched their convention, they had that big national debt clock behind, and cranking up, and they're running ads in your state, a battleground state, and many others about how my boss, the President of the United States, how he ran up the national debt, et cetera. Well, you'd think they really, really cared about it. You hear Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan talking about the urgency to act, about how to get the debt under control. And we agree. That's why we put forward a concrete plan to cut the debt by $4 trillion -- $4 trillion in the next 10 years. (Applause.)

That's what they say to you, though. They say it's our fault, but let's look at what they don't tell you. For the previous eight years, all the policies that Congressman Ryan voted for and Governor Romney said he supported, all those policies in a mere eight years, they doubled the national debt. They doubled the national debt from what they inherited in 2001. And on the first day, the President sat in the Oval Office, behind that magnificent desk, the Resolute, he was handed a bill, figuratively; the economic team came in for a briefing and said, the deficit for this year that you can do nothing about, Mr. President, because they already passed the budget, is going to be increased by $1 trillion. The first year, before the President was able to sign a bill, make any proposal. That's what they don't tell you.

They also don't tell you -- now, we have responsibility for the mess they left us. We don't argue with that. We're not saying we don't have -- we do have responsibility. But we put forward a way to reduce this debt. What they don't tell you is that they've rejected every single plan that has been put forward. Every one. (Applause.) And every one of those plans, from bipartisan groups, like names you haven't heard of -- like Domenici-Rivlin -- and names like you have heard about because it got so much publicity -- Simpson-Bowles Commission -- and every -- and all the plans. Every one of those plans said the only way to get the debt under control that you left us is, in fact, to have a balanced approach: cut spending by two and a half, three, four to one for every dollar you raise in new revenue. But it's every one of them had a balanced approach.

What Congressman Ryan didn't tell you when he raised this, he didn't tell you that he sat on the Simpson-Bowles Commission that came up with a plan to cut the debt by $4 trillion, like ours did -- different way of doing it, not exact same way -- by $4 trillion over the next 10 years. And the way that was supposed to work was whatever that -- whatever plan they voted for, it would be sent to the United States Senate and House to be voted on. That was a requirement under the commission. But because he voted no, it never even -- he wouldn't even let it go to the Congress to have a vote. He and three of his Republican colleagues blocked. This guy is so concerned about the national debt, wouldn't even let the Congress vote on that proposal.

Ladies and gentlemen, what they don't tell you is -- and this is a fact -- they have rejected every effort to reduce the national debt if that effort required even $1 -- one dime -- in additional revenue coming from people making more than $1 million. That's a fact. If you remember in the debates, Governor Romney has said and he's repeated, when asked by moderators, would you agree to a plan to significantly reduce the national debt if, in fact, it had $10 in spending cuts for only $1 in new revenue? And he said, yes, I would reject it.

Ladies and gentlemen, these guys think compromise is somehow a dirty word. Ladies and gentlemen, they're insisting and Romney is insisting in putting back in place the exact same policies that produced the problem in the first place. I mean, for real. Not a joke. Look at what they're proposing.

I know this is more of a partisan Democratic audience. I get it, but let's talk to the folks out there who may listen to this. Look at what they're proposing. They talk about this Great Recession. And they acknowledge in their convention what a tough circumstance the President was left with. They act like somehow in September of 2008, all of a sudden the recession fell from the sky and bang. (Laughter.) Whoa, how did this happen? How did this happen? As my number three granddaughter -- number four granddaughter would say -- Natalie said, Pop, did Casper the Friendly Ghost do it? (Laughter.) I mean how did it happen?

All kidding aside, if you're going to solve a problem, you got to figure out the cause of the problem in the first place. (Applause.) And I would have respected if they came up with a different answer, but acknowledged what the problem was, but a different answer then we, but they don't even acknowledge; because what they're doing is doubling down. To use President Clinton who is the best out there saying, he said, what Romney's proposing is Bush on steroids. (Applause.)

I mean it is like -- so, folks, if you listen to the conversations, to their speeches, to their ads, they talk an awful lot about what they value. They say they value education. They understand and care about the middle class. Isn't it amazing how they discovered the middle class at their convention? It was like, whoa. (Laughter.) Whoa, there's a middle class -- they must have used the phrase a thousand times. And they understand.

But what I might point out is, through no fault of their own, the middle class was decimated -- decimated by the policies that produced this recession. You all lost $16 trillion in equity in your homes.

AUDIENCE: Yes!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: And most of you through no fault of your own. You never missed a payment. You never did anything wrong. And all of a sudden, you find your house upside down. You also watched your 401(k)s, your pensions, you watched them begin to evaporate. Well, ladies and gentlemen, my dad had an expression. When anyone would say to him, you know -- his name was Joe. Joe, let me tell you what I value. My dad would always look back at them and say, Charlie, don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget. I will tell you what you value. Show me your budget. I will tell you what you value. That's fair enough, right? (Applause.)

So, folks, look, let's take a look -- and I apologize for my back. I'm sorry. Let's take a look at the Romney-Ryan budget and how it impacts on education and the middle class -- two things they talk about. The budget calls for, first of all, their budget calls for massive cuts to education. They cut $4.9 billion in one year out of elementary and secondary education, decimating early education, knocking 200,000 kids out of early education; eliminating the $2,500 tax credit for middle-class families to send and keep their kid in college; cutting Pell grants by $1,000 a year on 9 million students -- God knows how many will have to drop out -- eliminating what the President and it's to totally his credit, the President put in place saying you pay back your loans, you never have to pay back more than 10 percent of your disposable income. You have to pay it back, but give the people a fighting -- give people a fighting chance. The average kid graduating in Virginia and around the country will get a diploma this year and a bill for 25 grand.

Ladies and gentlemen, they basically walk away from public education. But it doesn't stop there. Their budget also kicks 19 million people off of Medicaid, and they all -- they make it sound like it's all poor folk. Well, ladies and gentlemen, there's a million seniors they kick off. The bulk of those seniors, the only way they're able to even possibly be in a nursing home is because they had to sell their farm, sell their house, everything they own, middle-class people like we were raised with. And they're going to kick them out of the nursing homes. Where are they going to go? Where are they going to go?

They make massive cuts in their proposal for Social Security. They turn Medicare into a voucher system, and they put insurance companies back in control of your health, telling you when you can be on a policy, when your policy ends, tell you when you cost out of your policy. And they raise taxes on the middle class.

And in the process, they refuse -- they refuse to give homeowners who are struggling to stay in their homes a break. There are 14 million people out there who have never missed a mortgage payment, who are upside down, who are paying -- paying -- over 6 percent interest on their mortgages. They could all refinance at 3 percent, saving them an average of 3,000 bucks a year, without any cost to the government, the plan we put forward, they reject that. Folks, in my neighborhood where I come from, $3,000 means whether or not you can have your automobile insurance paid for, whether you pay your property taxes, whether you can send people back to school. These guys act like it doesn't matter. (Applause.)

And they cut for middle-class people the child tax credit. Ladies and gentlemen, why are they doing all this? Why are they doing all this? Well, there's a simple, straightforward answer. It is not that complicated. They're doing it in order to maintain and pay for additional massive tax cuts for the very wealthy.

Now, we come from Delaware, a wealthy little state, the highest per-capita income, at least of the last census I recall, but a very wealthy state. I can tell you for certain having been elected there seven times in the Senate, I can tell you that wealthy people in my state are just as patriotic as poor folks, just as patriotic. But, ladies and gentlemen, they don't need another tax cut. They know they don't need. (Applause.)

Now, here's the deal, folks, just to put this in perspective. We're not talking about little numbers. Of the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, here's the deal, one-half trillion dollars of that, $500 billion over the next 10 years, goes to 120,000 families. You hear me now? Of all the families in America, families with an average income of $8 million a year, these guys are going to give another -- continue a half-a-trillion-dollar tax cut. Where -- imagine what the half a trillion dollars could do to reduce the debt? What that could be used to firm up education and help middle-class people?

Ladies and gentlemen, and on top of that, Romney has a new proposal -- and if this weren't so serious, you'd think I was making it up. (Laughter.) He has a new proposal, he and Ryan, an additional $250,000-a-year tax cut to those same families, totaling $1.7 trillion in new tax cuts.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, you got over $2 trillion in tax cuts going to people making a minimum of a million dollars a year right now. Somebody has got to pay for that. Either it balloons the deficit or it makes massive cuts somewhere else. And guess who pays for it.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I do.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: The good, old middle class. And, folks, the Tax Policy Center, made up of former leading Republican tax experts, economists and Democrats, that bipartisan group that everyone respects says that if Romney and Ryan's tax plan were to come to fruition, it would raise taxes $2,000 a year on middle-class families with children. And they talk about us -- we gave a $3,600 tax credit, in the first three years we've been in office, to the middle class. And they want in one year and every year thereafter charge another $2,000 to accommodate these massive tax cuts?

Folks, enough is enough. (Applause.) Enough is enough. I don't want to hear this talk about the middle class has to do more. We've got to lift the burden off the back of the middle class. (Applause.) We've got to give the middle class a fighting chance. We've got to give them an opportunity to get back on their feet.

I don't think these guys get it. I don't even think they understand what it means to be middle class. They talk about a number. Is it $49,570 or $51,000 -- middle class is a value set. Middle class is being able to own your home, not just rent it. Middle-class values are being able to live in a safe neighborhood. Middle-class values mean you can send your kids to a school that if they do well they have a fighting chance to get to college. (Applause.) And if they get accepted to college, you got a fighting chance to be able to send them to college. (Applause.) It's about being able to help your parents as they get much older, and hope you can save enough so your children won't have to help you. That's what middle class means. (Applause.) They just don't understand it.

Let me tell you what I don't understand. They don't understand the middle class. What I don't understand is I don't understand all their talk at their convention and this book that Congressman Ryan and McCarthy and a couple others in the Congress wrote. They call it -- they talk about the new culture of dependency and America in decline.

Ladies and gentlemen, Romney describes nearly half the American people as seeing themselves as victims, unwilling to take responsibility for their own lives. He attacks the 47 percent of the American people who he says pay no federal taxes. And he attacks -- he, Romney, attacking someone on taxes? I mean, whoa. (Laughter and applause.) That's like me attacking someone for being passionate in politics. (Laughter.)

Folks, the fact is these people pay a lot of taxes -- Social Security taxes, Medicare taxes, state and local taxes, gas taxes, property taxes. As the New York Times points out -- and it was in the Times a couple days ago, anybody wants to -- we ought to put it on our website if we haven't -- they point out that people making $23,000 a year -- I was a single parent for five years and I had a lot of help from my family raising two boys after my wife and daughter were killed. I used to sit and think -- I honest to God, I think to myself, my kids are being held to one standard and the woman or the man working a minimum-wage job or working two jobs is being -- their kid is being held to the same standard.

Ladies and gentlemen, somebody today in America making $23,000 a year pays over 20 percent of their income in taxes, in some form of taxes. Someone making -- a couple making $100,000 a year, they pay 29 percent in total tax burden.

Romney paid 14 percent of his income tax -- in federal income tax. He made over $13 million in income, almost all of it from investments, which he paid at 17 percent or less. He got million -- he has millions stashed in tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. The guy had a Swiss bank account. He refuses to release 10 years of his tax returns, which he demanded of his running mate -- 10 years.

Look, instead of attacking folks who work for a living and pay their way, Romney should be respecting their hard work. That's the job of a President -- to lift people up, not to tear them down. (Applause.) But folks --

AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Folks, it's pretty clear, it really is. I've been saying this for a while and I think people doubted it, but it's pretty clear that Governor Romney sees it a totally different way. I mean, he really sees it a totally different way. When he said, it's not my job to worry about these people, well, whose job is it?

Ladies and gentlemen, we are our brother's keeper. (Applause.) We are one nation under God. (Applause.) We are all in this together. And if the 47 percent doesn't make it, the country doesn't make it. (Applause.)

Folks, we do not think it creates a culture of dependency when a 79-year-old widow living alone has access to her Medicare and Social Security just to keep her scraping by. We don't think it is a culture of dependency when a 27-year-old couple with a couple of kids gets a childcare tax credit to make sure they can keep their kid in a daycare center that's safe while they work three jobs. (Applause.)

When a bright, qualified child from a household making less than $50,000 gets a college scholarship; when somebody's mom has had to spend, as I said, every penny and whatever asset she had from her home to a savings account in order to qualify to be -- get into a nursing home and qualify for Medicare -- we don't think this creates a culture of dependency. (Applause.) Ladies and gentlemen, it's not dependency, it's simple decency. It's simple decency. (Applause.)

How could Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan have such a profound, profound, in my view, misunderstanding of who the American people are? I really mean it.

Look, folks, this is not your father's Republican Party. I would be dumbfounded if your former Republican Senator John Warner said anything like this. I would be dumbfounded. I worked with him for 30 years. Ladies and gentlemen, this isn't even Mitt Romney's father's Republican Party.

You know what my dad used to say -- my dad used to say -- and I mean this sincerely -- he said, Joey, I don't expect the government to solve my problem, but I do expect them to understand it. (Applause.) Understand it.

Look, folks, we have a fundamentally different way forward. We know the way to create good jobs is, as they say, the old-fashioned way -- from the middle out. Because, by the way, when you have more income in your pocket, when you have a decent job, guess what? Everybody has a way up, and millionaires are created, and the wealthy do very, very well.

We're still a consumer-driven economy. Somebody has to be able to buy the products that are being made. (Applause.) Ladies and gentlemen, it doesn't work from the top down. Again, the studies show -- they talk about how these job creators, you give them all these additional tax breaks, ladies and gentlemen, the last time we -- and we had a serious experiment with it in the last -- from 2001 on, and, ladies and gentlemen, here's what the facts are. They don't want to talk about this, and I don't want to sound like a wonk -- a Washington wonk here -- but the facts are during that period we had the slowest growth in jobs of any time since World War II. They're the facts. This doesn't work.

Look, we have a different way. Our plan focuses on better education. We need -- and we have a plan for 100,000 new math and science teachers in the next 10 years -- (applause) -- 2 million workers -- 2 million workers learning new skills in a new economy to have good jobs, tying them up with their community colleges; 1 million new manufacturing jobs in the next four years; cutting oil imports in half; investing in clean, renewable wind and solar, creating tens of thousands of new jobs. (Applause.) Six hundred thousand new jobs by safely developing the 100-year supply of natural gas we have below our soil, real and fair enforcement of our trade laws, leveling the playing field because, as I travel around the world, the world is looking for the best products in the world. We have the most productive workers in the world. They're prepared to buy products made: Stamped in America, if, in fact, the field is level. (Applause.)

And, folks, responsibly ending the war in Afghanistan as we responsibly ended in Iraq and come home and build our own roads, our own bridges, our own schools. (Applause.) Invest here in America, which by itself would support hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs.

And fulfill -- and fulfill the one and only truly sacred obligation we have, Colonel, only one truly sacred obligation --and I mean this sincerely -- prepare and equip those who we send to war and care for them when they come home from war. (Applause.)

Folks, let me end by asking you, how many of you personally or have a family member or know somebody who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan? (Applause.) I'm in Virginia. This is Virginia.

Ladies and gentlemen, we owe those of you who served, we owe the families of those who have served an incredible debt. We owe a debt we can never repay to those Gold Star families. Every single morning when I get my briefing book, my staff checks the night before on the exact number of what they call in the field -- I've been in and out of Afghanistan and Iraq now 20 times -- and one of the most emotional things that I have ever had to face, and it occurs -- it hasn't occurred the last several times, but it occurred from the beginning, I'd get in a C-130 to fly out or a C-17, and you'd hear a captain or a colonel say, sir, permission to board a Fallen Angel. Because that's what they refer to the young women and men who lose their lives in the battlefield. And then they strap that coffin to the center of that cargo plane, whichever one you're on, draped in the flag. And it literally has the effect of turning that plane from a cargo plane into a cathedral. It's such a profound thing.

And all I can ever think of -- my son spent a year in Iraq -- all I can ever think of is the mom and dad or the husband and wife, the brother and sister waiting to receive that Fallen Angel at the other end.

And, ladies and gentlemen, the reason I want to know exactly what the number is, is because every one of those lives has profoundly impacted upon and change the lives of two, five, 10, 50, 100 and God knows how many more people.

And, ladies and gentlemen, as of today, there are 4,487 fallen heroes; 49,846 wounded -- tens of thousands -- over 17,000 who if they -- any of you of the Vietnam era, as I am? I did not serve in Vietnam, but in the Vietnam era, 70 percent of those wounded today in Iraq and Afghanistan since the war began would have died if they received the same wounds in Vietnam, but because of the Golden Hour, and because of the triage capability, they're home. But here's the difference, they now have life expectancies those who were mortally wounded of 35 years. Ladies and gentlemen, they need expensive, intensive health care the rest of their lives.

AUDIENCE: Yes!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: And, ladies and gentlemen, we must never, ever, ever, ever forget their sacrifices. We must always keep them in our care and keep them in our prayers. (Applause.)

Folks, America is not a country of people who view themselves as victims.

AUDIENCE: No!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: America is a country throughout our history and to this very moment that when people get knocked down, as my dad would say, you got one obligation, get up. Just get up.

When I hear Romney and Ryan talking and this new Republican Party in Congress talking about decline and dependency, I honest to God do not recognize the country they're talking about. And, ladies and gentlemen, I've got news for Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan: Gentlemen, it has never, ever, ever been a good bet to bet against the American people. Never. (Applause.)

America is coming back. America will not turn back. We are going to continue to move forward, and with your help, we will finish what we started. We win Virginia, we win the presidency. So, Virginia, we need you. (Applause.)

God bless you all and may God protect our troops. Thank you.

END 11:39 P.M. EDT