Biden Calls McCain Out of Touch With Middle Class

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Home | Joe Biden, John McCain
Biden Calls McCain Out of Touch With Middle Class
by FOXNews.com
Monday, September 15, 2008
 

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ST. CLAIR SHORES, Mich. — Joe Biden threw his hardest punches yet at John McCain on Monday, linking the Republican presidential candidate to the economic policies of the Bush administration, describing him as out of touch with middle-class Americans and claiming he is in the pocket of big oil and other corporations.

“John McCain doesn’t seem to understand what middle-class people are going through today,” Biden said at a campaign stop. “I don’t doubt that he cares. He just doesn’t think that we have any responsibility to help people who are hurting.

“My dad used to have an expression: Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and Ill tell you what you value. By that measure, John McCain doesn’t stand with the middle class. He stands with George Bush firmly in the corner of the wealthy and well-connected,” Biden said.

Barack Obama’s Democratic running mate said McCain supported tax breaks for the nation’s largest oil companies, despite Exxon-Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the company doesn’t need tax breaks to explore for oil.

“John McCain is so firmly in their corner, he thinks the Exxon-Mobils of the world should get an additional $4 billion dollars a year in tax cuts,” Biden said.

The Delaware senator said when President Bush ran for office, he pledged to be a reformer who would cross the political aisle to work with Democrats. He said Bush failed to do so, and the outcome is a record number of home foreclosures, tumbling home values and the collapse of the nation’s largest financial institutions.

McCain, who has voted with Bush 90 percent of the time, would offer more of the same, Biden said.

“Just as George Herbert Walker Bush was nicknamed ‘Bush 41′ and his son is known as ‘Bush 43,’ John McCain could easily become known as ‘Bush 44,’” he said.

Repeating a key Democratic theme, Biden cast McCain as a Bush clone.

“We’ve seen this movie before, folks,” he said. “But as everyone knows, the sequel is always worse than the original.

Biden’s attack was aimed at knocking McCain’s surge in the polls since he named Sarah Palin as his running mate. The presidential race intensified last week after the McCain campaign accused Barack Obama of calling Sarah Palin a pig when he described McCain’s policies as “lipstick on a pig.”

The Obama campaign fired back with an ad mocking McCain for admitting that he doesn’t know how to use a computer and another Monday charging McCain with running a dishonorable campaign.

Biden, who has been tasked with providing the campaign’s most biting hits on McCain, offered several examples of McCain’s votes, saying the Arizona senator supported Bush’s failed proposal to privatize Social Security, opposed a GI bill that will give veterans more money for college regardless of the length of their service and wanted to tax employer-provided health care as income.

Borrowing from the Democratic playbook, Biden hailed McCain’s military service before ripping his political record.

“America needs more than a brave soldier. America needs a wise leader,” he said, getting a roar from the crowd.

[Dixie Dude]

The Dem's have ran congress the last two years.  The congress controls the money, not the president.  We have been going downhill ever since they took control of congress.  Palin will help McCain with the middle class. 

[SHOOTALL]

the definition of an American politician "is out of touch with the middle class "
Mrs P excepted !

[Graybeard]

I certainly can not disagree that McCain is out of touch with middle class America. That applies to any and ALL Career politicians equally in my mind so he is talking about himself when he speaks of McCain being out of touch just as much so as he is McCain. They don't know nor care about middle class America. They care only about their super rich friends who finance them and their life styles. The facts are Obama was born out of touch with us as well and has done NOTHING since birth to try to get in touch with us.

[jimster]

The ironic thing is, all Senators are in the legislative branch, all the stuff they promise you they could have done right there at their Senate seats, still could.
I fail to see how any of them can promise they can do more outside the Senate. 

I also agree with the exception of Governor Palin, but then, she has not been in the Senate at all, and seems to have done more than any of them, in the several years she spent in any kind of office, city council, Mayor, and Governnor.  Lots of older news out there that have been untouched about Palin, funny nobody was challenging it then, or twisting it.  I wish there was a law that senators can't run for president when their approval ratings are below 70 percent, as a whole. 

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/851orcjq.asp?pg=1

[nomosendero]

As though Gun Ban Biden is in touch. 

[Dixie Dude]

McCains wife helps her son build race cars.  She also helps orphans.  They even adopted two girls from Asia.  She actually does things that normal people do.  So do the Palins.  What actual real good has the community organizer done?  What real hobbies does he have? Basketball?  What does Biden do?  Sail a boat off the Delaware coast?   

[billy_56081]

Pot calling the kettle black?

[JBlk]

I think that greybeard hit the whole problem on the head.Thats one of the reasons we should demand term limits and require all politicans to have social security retirement instead of their present system.

[magooch]

I saw this on another site, but it applies quite nicely to this thread...Buck Fiden.

[Redhawk1]

Biden is out of touch with everything, he has done nothing for Delaware. I call him OBiden...

[ironglow]

Redhawk;
  How about A-Biden ? He isn't doing anything...just abiding, waiting to collect a fat, golden parachute..

   Don't know if he has done absolutely nothing..guess he has been active..trying to destroy the 2nd amendment ..

[deltecs]

I think that greybeard hit the whole problem on the head.Thats one of the reasons we should demand term limits and require all politicans to have social security retirement instead of their present system.

Well, I agree with the social security part of retirement for Congressmen and elected federal officials.  I totally disagree with the statement regarding term limits for individual State elected federal Congressmen.  The US Constitution clearly was designed for checks and balances between populated States and those less so.  That is why each State has only 2 Senators, so the more populated States could not dictate its will over the smaller populated ones.  By having a House of Representatives with its membership more representative due population, the larger States were well represented, so the smaller States could not prevent expansion.  With term limits for all States, the smaller populated States would never be elected to chair committees and thus, only the more populated States would have chairmanships, which control what bills will be eventually voted upon.  If both houses had no seniority due term limits, the more populated States would control all chairs, determine which bills would be voted upon, and the smaller populated States would pay the fee or taxes for laws that benefited only the populated States, while receiving no federal funding in return.  It is only through seniority that the smaller populated States have any power to prevent this absolute power corruption in Congress. 

[Matt]

Pot calling the kettle black?

yep....

[ironglow]

 Yes, you're right there Deltecs..

[SHOOTALL]

all men are created equal , then they get elected and feel they are better than the rest , if they really were we would not be looking at an election with a noticeable lack of talent !
well the lady from AK has talent ! but she came late , but glad she showed up !

[animal]

Whoa deltecs,
Alaskan residents receive more federal dollars than residents in any other state. Also social security and medicare were enacted under democratic presidents. I'm not saying to vote democratic or republican but we need to look at the least of two evils and vote.

[SHOOTALL]

WHOA ANIMAL,
Maybe more than most , but not those in the state of wealfare !
you know the hand out state !
Obama's and Bidens state !

[oldandslow]

Biden is in touch with enough of America to keep getting elected. That right there is what scares me the most. The fact that he and so many like him, Pelosi, Fienstein, Shumer, Conyers, and on and on have the votes to stay in office. There are a lot of people out there that want to completely change the fundamentals that this country was founded on. They are getting it done slowly but surely too.

 Local politicians are bad enough, state politicians are worse, and the bunch in Washington truly believe that they are superior to us and know what is best for everyone. I used to think term limits weren't needed. If they weren't doing things right we could vote them out. Doesn't work that very often does it? I think senators should be limited to two, four year terms just like the president and house members to two, two year terms. No pension what so ever. Social Security and Medicare just like the rest of America. Might not help us a bit but at least we would have some new faces to cuss regularly instead of the same old bunch. I bet the cost of living index that social security bases their annual increases on would take a pretty big jump too if the politicos were made to depend on social security instead of their big retirement. Bet the financial problems social security faces would be fixed shortly too.

[deltecs]

Whoa deltecs,
Alaskan residents receive more federal dollars than residents in any other state. Also social security and medicare were enacted under democratic presidents. I'm not saying to vote democratic or republican but we need to look at the least of two evils and vote.

My response was intended to call the attention to unrealistic pension by Congressmen, while the rest of the Nation must use social security, whether or not we want to.  It is also the Dems that have increased social security taxation to fund social welfare programs not needed nor effective, just to keep elected.  As for Alaskan's receiving more federal tax dollars per capita, how many federal dollars have been spent per capita in other states during the time they have been states.  When one looks at how young Alaska is as a State and compared to federal dollars spent in States with much longer tenure, then the total amound of federal dollars spent here is infintesimal compared to them.  That is almost all of the lower 48.  I'm not in favor of spending federal dollars frivolously nor without effective or efficient use.  I am in favor of using federal tax dollars for highway infrastructure and transportation that effects national commerce.  My post was in disagreement with the concept of term limits suggested by some with my reasons why I think they are a bad idea.  I still believe term limits to be a bad idea and especially do not desire the communal, social, and economic liberal concepts of the Dems.  I think this is the real philosophy that is out of touch with Main Street America and is the basis for Obama and Biden platform.  It is they, who are out of touch.  And for the first time in my life, I am voting for the best candidate by voting for a VP, instead of a President.

[animal]

Did we not just do a welfare deal for AIG ?

[Dixie Dude]

My wife is a stock trader.  She said if the government didn't step in, all the banks would have fell like dominoes and we would be thrown into a depression.  As is, this may avoid depression, but might cause inflation if the government can't sell the 5,000,000 homes that have been abandoned or repossesed.  I think we should relocate some of the hurricane victums to these homes and not rebuild along the coasts like we have in the past.  Just my opinion.  This thing started with Clinton in 1998 with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get people to buy homes who never owned one before with low interet and variable interest mortgages, no down payments, didn't check them for full time jobs either.  They donated $450 million to dem canditates and $150 to rep canditates for various offices the last 10 years, so noone wanted to stop.  Their CEO's took fat salaries too.  They can't begin to get to the bottom of who did what.  Too many people involved.  However, McCain is right, we need new rules and regulations reguarding the mortgage industry.  Everyone can't afford a home.  They are either too lazy to work and hold a job. If they are low income with a job, there is always Habitat for Humanity, which is very successful. 

[tegana]

It should also be remembered that  Sen. McCain  tried to get   something  done in 05 to stop the   run away lending by   the Mac's and otherd  and it  was killed  by the   Dems  and now we get stuck with the bill   .

[Dixie Dude]

The Bush administration saw it coming in 2002, but congress wouldn't act on new regulations for mortgage lenders.  The dems will blame Bush, but they are the ones who stalled everything.  The dems are very power hungry.  We are probably going to have run-a-way inflation to pay for his fiasco.  The late Larry Burkett, a christian author on financial matters, warned of exactly this thing happening in 1992 in his book "The Coming Economic Earthquake".  He preached until he died, to get out of debt, and pay off your mortgage. 

[deltecs]

If we get double digit inflation again like in the 80's, this is what the Dems will use to pay for all the tax welfare programs they tout.  With inflation, someone who makes 150 thousand now will easily and soon be making over 250 thousand with the same standard of living but with higher taxation.  It is through inflation that governments can pay off its debt faster with a lower standard of living for its citizens without raising taxes.  Put someone in a higher tax bracket and see what happens to the net profit and loss statement.