Biden tells audience middle class has been 'buried' last four years
By Amie Parnes - 10/02/12 01:33 PM ET
Vice President Biden said Tuesday that the middle class has been “buried” for the last four years.
Biden made the remark at a campaign rally while arguing that Republicans would raise taxes on the middle class. He said the tax hike would be especially bad given what the middle class has been through over the last four years.
“This is deadly earnest, man. This is deadly earnest,” the vice president said. “How they can justify, how they can justify raising taxes on the middle class that has been buried the last four years? How in lord's name can they justify raising their taxes with these tax cuts.”
Republicans quickly seized on the remarks, accusing the Obama administration of implementing policies that have hurt the middle class.
“We agree, the middle class has been buried the past four years by Obama's failed policies from higher taxes to more debt, which is why he doesn't deserve another term in the White House to make it worse,” Kirsten Kukowski, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.
All of the Bush-era tax rates are set to expire at the end of the year. Republicans want to extend all of the tax rates, while Obama wants to end the lower rates for upper income households.
The vice president, campaigning in Charlotte and Asheville on Tuesday, was off to a bumpy start earlier in the day after his plane had to abort a landing attempt.
Biden, who arrived at his event more than an hour after its initial start time, told the crowd that there were some “queasy stomachs on our plane.”
