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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Vice President
For Immediate Release October 22, 2012


REMARKS OF VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN
AT A CAMPAIGN EVENT

Lorain High School
Lorain, Ohio


3:39 P.M. EDT


THE VICE PRESIDENT: Hello, Lorain. (Applause.) Ladies and gentlemen, I have three beautiful children -- two boys and my daughter. And my sons keep saying they're my best friends, but they keep saying that I love Ashley the most. (Laughter.) They're right. (Laughter.) She's the love of my life and the life of my love. She told me about a month ago, Dad, I'm taking the last couple of weeks off. You need me. And she's right. So, ladies and gentlemen, thank you -- thank you for being so nice.

Amy, thank you for that wonderful introduction, but more importantly for all the work you're doing, Amy, and why you're doing it.

And, folks, what a difference a governor makes. How about Ted Strickland, man? (Applause.) This is -- did you all hear him at the Democratic Convention? Whoa. I want to tell you something, Ted is -- I've been around public life for most of my life, and I've never met a more stand-up, decent, honorable man than Ted Strickland. And I'm flattered he'd be here today. (Applause.)

Mr. Mayor, Chase, where are you? Chase -- (Applause.) Over there. Well, Chase is too darn young, man. (Laughter.) Twenty-five years old. Chase you'll love hearing that repeated to you years from now because they used to say to me, Joe Biden, 29 years old, United States senator, not even old enough to be sworn in. And I'd say, oh, God, don't say that. Oh, I wish they'd say that again. (Laughter.) So, Chase, thank you -- thank you very much.

I know I'm in a great friend and supporter and mutual support we have Marcy Kaptur's district. (Applause.)

But I want to know -- I want you to know Marcy is going to have a neighbor, a new neighbor in the seventh district. If you live over the line in the seventh district, I want you to meet Joyce Healy-Abrams, right here, who is going to be the next -- (Applause.) Stand up. Stand up. Get to recognize her, you're going to be seeing her when she wanders across the line.

So, ladies and gentlemen, before I move on, I want to remind you what the Governor has already referenced, that starting today, early voting sites in Ohio are now open for extended hours. (Applause.) And that means you can vote any time between 8:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. So go out and -- let's end this thing early, okay? (Applause.)

Folks, the President has -- is about to have his third debate. I just spoke with Michelle, speaking of a classy woman and a classy, bright lady. (Applause.) And he's excited for the debate tonight. And of course, this will be his third debate. And I had my one debate with Congressman Ryan. (Applause.)

And one thing I think has come across clearly to the American people is that we really have fundamentally different views on how to move this nation forward, and a fundamentally different value set than the other team does. The differences are profound.

On foreign policy, on Afghanistan, the President and I have made it clear that we will end this war in Afghanistan by the end of 2014, period. Done, over. (Applause.)

And the reason we can do that is we've already trained 315,000 Afghani military. They are able to take responsibility for their own country, and they should. But Governor Ryan -- excuse me -- Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan, they say -- although they say 2014 is okay, they say -- when asked directly will they leave in 2014, they said, maybe. It all depends. Well, folks, it shouldn't surprise you. With them, everything is all depends. It all depends on who they're talking to. (Laughter.) It all depends on when they're talking. It all depends.

Another place where our differences couldn't be more stark is where Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan have such a fundamentally different view than we do is on women's rights. (Applause.)

Look, Barack and I are absolutely, positively committed -- and make no mistake about it, we're committing to make sure my daughter, his daughters and my four granddaughters have every single opportunity my sons have, every single opportunity my grandson has -- without exception. Without exception. (Applause.)

But Governor Romney and Ryan, they made it very clear that they don't believe a woman has the right to control her own body. They're willing to impose their private views on the public.

On women's health, they want to turn the power back to insurance companies, allowing them to charge women 50 percent more for the same coverage as they do now; allowing them to continue to be able to say pregnancy is a preexisting condition. No, that's a fact. Under the law we passed, they won't be able to do that. They want to repeal that.

And, folks, I haven't even talked about what the Supreme Court will look like after four years of Governor Romney. Just imagine when Governor Romney was asked the direct question in the last debate about equal pay for equal work for women, what did he talk about? He started talking about binders. He talked about binders. (Applause.) Binders? Binders of qualified women that he learned were out there. We Catholics call that an epiphany. (Laughter.) He never did answer whether or not a woman was entitled to equal pay.

But that shouldn't surprise you he never answered it. This is a man whose senior advisors said he opposed the Lilly Ledbetter Act. Ryan voted against the act, tried to block it. Folks, it's not just his bank account in the Caymans and his Swiss bank accounts and all this outsourcing to China. That's not the only reason he's out of touch. He's out of touch with where the American -- we've moved beyond this with women in America. (Applause.) We're not going back. We're not going -- women will not allow it to go back. Men will not allow it to go back. (Applause.)

But it's not just on those issues. It's on -- they're now even abandoning the central tenet of their party and their agenda. All of a sudden, Governor Romney claims he doesn't have a $5 trillion tax cut he talked so much about the previous months. The President has a new term for what Romney is going through -- (applause) -- Romnesia. (Applause.) I mean, he's got a heck of a case of Romnesia.

But here's the thing -- it's contagious. Ryan has it now. (Laughter.) Amazing. Ryan says his budget, which is heralded by the right as this new, bold effort to fundamentally change spending, cut entitlements, et cetera -- that's why they hailed him. That's why he -- that's how he got his spurs. All of a sudden, he said just before our debate, we don't cut the budget, we just slow the growth. Slow the growth?

Right now, Ryan is denying that his budget decimates Medicare, eviscerates education. It's a little bit like him talking about how his budget doesn't do great harm to middle-class concerns is like Romney telling the guy in the unemployment line, look, I didn't outsource your job, I just off-shored your job. (Laughter.)

And, by the way, that's not just the punch line. When the Washington Post reported that Governor Romney, when he was heading up Bain Capital, was "a pioneer" in helping companies take work that was being done here in Ohio and other states and move it to China, move it overseas, his response was -- this was literally his response when I publicly criticized him for it. His response was he tried to make a distinction between off-shoring and outsourcing. Now, tell that to the guy without a job, the women without a job.

Now, some of his defenders say, Biden, you've been unfair to the Governor. That was his job at Bain. I agree, his job at Bain was finding the lowest-paying place, the lowest tax rate, the lowest -- and ship the jobs there. That's how they made all their money. I get it. But that's not the job of a President. A President's job is to bring jobs home, create jobs here -- not have jobs go abroad. (Applause.)

But, folks, I point out it wasn't just his job at Bain. When he was Governor of Massachusetts, we saw that it wasn't just his job, it was his philosophy. I want to tell you -- this is factual. All the national press is here, so they can check it. And they have checked it. You can too.

As Governor of Massachusetts, his administration signed a $160,000-a-month contract to pay people abroad to take the phone calls of poor people in Massachusetts who were calling to see whether or not they were qualified for food stamps. Now, that's a fact. And when the Massachusetts State Legislature passed a bill saying you can't outsource state contracts overseas, he vetoed it.

Now, how is that for a cool irony? You're an unemployed worker in Massachusetts -- this literally happened. You're an unemployed worker in Massachusetts. You pick up the phone, because you've lost your job. You need help to feed your family. You call about unemployment benefits or food stamps. And the woman calling ends up talking to someone in another country who has the job that that woman could be doing.

Ladies and gentlemen, and this is a guy -- I've been in and out of Iowa a lot the last several months, over 20-some events. And every time I stay overnight, I turn on the television. I see these ads about Romney and China -- he's getting tough on China. Come on, man. Come one. This guy is the prince of outsourcing.

In his book -- he wrote a book just before he started this latest quest. It's called "No Apologies." And in that book, he referred to President Obama as a protectionist for stepping up and stopping an unfair surge of Chinese tires that was hurting American manufacturers and American workers. The President won that case and put a thousand Americans back to work making tires. (Applause.)

And so on China, on tires, Romney can't dodge the fact that he was happy to let China roll over American workers. And now, he's trying to roll over with a lot of money that this is the guy who's going to get tough on China. And one more thing, Ryan and Romney have a new idea now. It only came up once in the debate. They don't want to talk about it much. It's called -- a new tax policy and it's called a territorial tax. What it means is -- this is literal now. They're proposing to change the corporate tax code to impose a territorial tax, meaning that if you want to build a factory, you can go to the country the Bain way that has the lowest taxes in the world and low, low wages. You can build a factory there, pay that low tax, bring all your profit home and never have to pay a penny in American tax.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, that's a fact. Now guess what, folks, the experts point out that that will create 800,000 new jobs -- all of them abroad. When Ross Perot talked about a giant sucking sound, that's the vacuum cleaner -- seriously, where are you going to go? You may be a decent, honorable guy. You're about to build a factory. You know if you go overseas, you don't have to pay any taxes.

So, ladies and gentlemen, the President said the other day after the last debate that Governor Romney was, he said, awful sketchy. Well, it's not my place to correct the President, but I'm going to tonight -- or today. I wouldn't call it sketchy. I'd say they're Etch-a-sketchy. (Laughter.) These guys have got that Etch-a-Sketch pad out there. They told us it was coming. (Applause.) They told us it was coming. Well, they brought it out now.

Folks, the stakes for this country are too high, too important. It's time for leaders in this country in both parties to stand up, say what they believe in, stand by what they say. Presidential elections are unique of all elections. It's the one area where the single, most defining feature looked for -- people look for in a campaign is their character. Do they have the character of their convictions? And I'm telling you, watching him every day, my guy has got character. (Applause.) And he has courage in his soul. This man has got compassion in his heart, and he's got steel in his spine. (Applause.)

Ladies and gentlemen, there's not a day that's gone by in the last four years that I have not been grateful that Barack Obama is the President of the United States of America. (Applause.)

It's his -- to make the tough calls, say what he means, and do what he says. The best I can say about our opponents is that they've had what, again, we Catholics call an epiphany -- all of a sudden, these guys have discovered the middle class. It's like at the convention, it was like, my God, they all started talking about the middle class. Hadn't heard anything about that before. And what they say is, they say they value the middle class now. And they have middle-class values, they say.

My dad, whose name was Joe, he used to have an expression -- when people would come up to my dad and they'd say, Joe, let me tell you what I value. My dad would look at him and he'd say, Charlie, don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget and I will tell you what you value. (Applause.) So let's look at their budget.

Let's look at what they value on taxes. They insist on keeping the tax cuts for the very wealthy -- one-half trillion dollars' worth, $5 billion goes to 120,000 families. That's it -- a half a trillion dollars. Ladies and gentlemen, on top of that they've got this new $5 trillion deal. They say it's not going to cost anything, but it will give those same 120,000 families another $250,000 a year tax break. They say, no, no, no, no, that isn't going to cost any more money. We're going to close loopholes for the wealthy.

Well, folks, you can't get there from here -- because the one loophole they insist they will not close is that loophole that allows Romney to pay 14 percent of his income, $20 million, in taxes. The only way they can make it work -- and all the outside groups have said this, independent groups -- the only way is, first of all, raising taxes on middle-class families with children $2,000 a year. That's number one.

Two, it requires them to gut Medicare, turn it into a voucher system. It requires them to decimate education and Medicare. That's why they embrace the Ryan budget -- there's no other way to pay another $5 trillion in taxes.

Ladies and gentlemen, instead of these guys signing pledged to a guy named Grover Norquist to cut taxes for the very wealthy -- that's what they do -- they should be signing a pledge to you, to middle-class Americans -- (applause) -- that we will not raise your taxes, that we'll level the playing field, that we'll give you a fair shot again. That's the pledge the President and I have signed.

Ladies and gentlemen, here's how we're going to do that on education. We're going to continue to improve and fund education, because it's the foundation -- it's the foundation upon which the economic dominance of the 21st century rests.

My wife teaches full-time while being the Second Lady. She has a great expression --- Joey, any -- any country that out-educates us will out-compete us. It's the foundation. Six out of 10 jobs in the next 10 years are going to require something beyond a high school degree. That's why we're going to maintain the $2,500 tax credit for you folks trying to get your kids to college. (Applause.) That's why we're going to expand Pell grants. We already expanded them from 6 million kids to 9 million. (Applause.)

Ladies and gentlemen, that's why we're going to insist on 100,000 new math and science teachers -- to keep America the best in the world. (Applause.)

On jobs, we're going to continue to rebuild the manufacturing base of America. That's why -- speaking of tough decisions -- remember almost everybody on the Republican side and even some Democrats were advising the President not to "rescue" the automobile industry. Remember that? But he said, no, I'm betting on the productivity of American workers and the ingenuity of management. And he bet on them, and the automobile business is back -- (applause) -- 100,000 right here in Ohio. That means 100,000 jobs supported by the auto industry.

Steel is coming back. (Applause.) We're seeing it in Canton and Youngstown, and with the 450 new steel workers at Republic Steel here in Lorain. (Applause.)

Folks, where is it written that we can't lead the world in steel production, automobile production? There's no reason why we can't. Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to continue this momentum, creating a million new manufacturing jobs, helping businesses double their exports. How? Give tax breaks to companies that invest here and not abroad. (Applause.) Train 2 million Americans with job skills they'll need over just the next three years, working with community colleges, working with businesses, to make sure the students can finish school and go right into the jobs that are open because the skills are not available right now.

Third, on energy, we're going to continue to cut our oil imports, cut them in half, produce more American-made oil -- ladies and gentlemen, more American-made energy -- clean coal, natural gas, right here in Ohio, which would create 600,000 new jobs in the next decade and tens of thousands of them here in Ohio.

Ladies and gentlemen, renewable resources -- wind, solar, biofuels -- conservation. We have doubled the fuel efficiency over the objection of our Republican friends in cars and trucks. Over the next 10 years, this is going to save $1.7 trillion at the gas pump and 12 billion barrels of oil, just by that one single act. (Applause.)

Ladies and gentlemen, on taxes, we think the way to grow the economy is from the middle out -- give the middle class tax breaks. That's where it comes. We've already cut $3,600 in taxes, 18 times for small businesses. And now we're going to insist on keeping tuition tax credits, continuing to expand the credit for working families through the childcare tax credit. And we're going to make permanent that middle-class tax cut that they are holding up.

You may remember in the Ryan-Biden debate, when I said we want to reduce further the taxes of the middle-class, and he said we do, too. And I said, why then -- why then are you insisting on maintaining the tax for 120,000 families at a half-a-trillion dollars? Unless we give you that you will not let us vote on the middle-class tax cuts. These guys are holding the middle-class tax cut hostage again.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion over the next -- we've already cut a trillion over the next 10 years. And we're going to ask for a balanced approach to balancing this budget, including asking the very wealthy to pay a little more. They can afford it. They can afford it. (Applause.)

And, ladies and gentlemen, as the Governor said, just as we did in Iraq, we're going to end this war in Afghanistan -- (applause) -- saving us $800 billion over the next 10 years. We're going to bring that money home, reduce the deficit, and build roads in America, bridges in America, schools in America, infrastructure in America, creating hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs. (Applause.)

And on housing, we're going to continue to push for people to be able to we're going to continue to push the people to be able to modify and refinance their mortgages. Fourteen million of you have never, ever, ever missed a mortgage payment, yet you're underwater because this economy killed you and you're paying a 6, 6.5, 7 percent when you could be paying at 3.5 or 3.75 or 4 percent. We have a program that would lay out there that you can do that without one penny -- without one penny of taxpayers' money, by the banks, the big banks you bailed out putting up pennies on the dollar for a reinsurance fund. That would save $3,000 a year for 14 million families. And they say we're being unfair to the banks. We will get this done. (Applause.)

Look, folks, the Romney plan and the Ryan plan is the same old thing. Think what Governor Romney said the first thing he'll do in the first 100 days. He said he will take all the regulations off of Wall Street and the banks again. He will let -- he's saying he will get rid of Dodd-Frank, they call it. He will allow Wall Street to be a casino again, and he's going to allow the banks to write their own rules. And on top of that, he adds another $2 trillion in tax cuts to the very wealthy.

Folks, we have seen this movie before. We know how it ends. It ends in a catastrophe for the middle class. The American people will not go back. (Applause.)

And, folks, unlike Ryan and Romney, Barack and I do not think 47 percent of the American people are, as they said, unwilling to take personal responsibility for their own lives. (Applause.) Ladies and gentlemen, where do these guys live? No, I mean it, where do they live? Let me tell them: Governor Romney, those 47 percent of the people you dismissed, they are hardworking people. They pay their payroll taxes. They pay their state taxes. They pay their property taxes. They pay their sales -- matter of fact, they pay more taxes than you do as a percent. (Applause.)

The remainder of that 47 percent are the elderly, who earned their Social Security, worked their whole lives, and are not now paying tax on their Social Security -- and they should not be paying tax on their Social Security. (Applause.)

They are the 68,000 warriors in Afghanistan, like my son when he was in Iraq, who, while in service, while in harm's way, get paid but don't have to pay any federal tax -- and they should not have to pay any federal tax. (Applause.)

And, folks, I'd be remiss, having been in and out of Afghanistan and Iraq 20 times, if I didn't say at this moment that we can't ever forget the incredible price so many families have already paid. How many of you are veterans or how many of you served in Iraq or in Afghanistan? How many of you know anybody who's there -- a family member? (Applause.)

Well, let me tell you something, I check this number every single morning. On the plane I got a new number. I check how many wounded and dead every day. Because let me tell you something: One lost angel -- and that's what they're referred to as in the battlefield -- changes the lives and the trajectory of an awful lot of people -- those families waiting at home for that flag-draped coffin. So I want to make sure that I mention every single one. Thus far, there are 6,500 Fallen Angels -- that's what they refer to when you fall. One of my early trips into Iraq, I was flying out of Baghdad on a C-17; I believe it was a colonel who said, Mr. Vice President, permission to board a Fallen Angel? They bring in a flag-draped coffin and they latch it to the cargo space in the floor. And it turns that C-17 into a cathedral.

Ladies and gentlemen, 6,500 have come home like that. Fifty thousand and fourteen, to be precise, wounded. Over 17,000 of them with multiple wounds and such serious injuries that will require extensive care the rest of their lives, and the life expectancy is over 30 years. We owe them. We owe their families an overwhelming debt.

Folks, we have a lot of obligations as a nation. We only have one truly sacred obligation. We have an obligation to our children, our elderly, our -- but only one sacred obligation. And that is to equip those who we send to war, and care for them when they come home from war. (Applause.)

And, ladies and gentlemen, these women and men and their families who have given so much, they are the spine of this country. And the American people are so much better, so much stronger, take so much more responsibility than these guys give them credit for. I have been in office since I was 28 years old, in the Senate. I have served with an awful lot of Presidents -- eight Presidents. I've never seen two candidates for the highest office who are more negative about the state of America, more negative about the prospect of America's future, and more negative about the industry of American people than these two men. All their talk is talk about the culture of dependency, America being in decline. I honest to God don't recognize the country they're talking about.

I'm here to tell you, America is better positioned than any nation in the world to lead the 21st century. They say, no, America is in decline. When it came out that 5.2 million new jobs, private sector jobs had been created -- instead of losing 800,000 jobs a month when we took office, we're now averaging 167,000 new jobs per month the last 31 months -- not enough but a fundamental change -- what do they say? They say America is in decline.

When the unemployment rate in Ohio dropped from above 10 percent to 7 percent, they didn't say unemployment is declining; they said America is declining. All their talk about energy independence -- it was pointed out to them that oil production is the highest it's been in 14 years, we're importing less oil than any time in the last 20 years -- what was their response? They said that may be true, but you had nothing to do with it.

When it was announced just last week that housing starts are at the highest levels since July of 2008, and the housing market had hit the bottom and was coming back, they didn't know what to say. So they just said, again, America is in decline. When we brought out our plan to let people refinance, saving $3,000 a year, they said we were being unfair to the banks. Nothing about you all; we were being unfair to the banks.

Folks, America is not in decline. Romney and Ryan are in denial. (Applause.) Folks, in Ohio, like where I'm from, there is no quit in America. There is no quit in America. (Applause.) The American people are bringing their country back, and they will not go back. And where I come from there's only one direction: Forward. That's the only direction the American people go. (Applause.)

And I've got news for these guys. I've got news for these guys: Gentlemen -- Governor Romney, Congressman Ryan -- it's never, ever, ever been a good bet to bet against the American people. (Applause.) Folks, we need you. Together we can win Ohio. If we win Ohio, we win this election.

So God bless you and may God protect our troops. Thank you, Ohio! Thank you. (Applause.)

END 4:10 P.M. EDT