KVNO News

Biden defends Obama in Bluffs

By Robyn Murray, KVNO News

October 4th, 2012

Omaha, NE – Joe Biden made a campaign stop in Council Bluffs, Iowa today. The Vice President made an impassioned plea to voters a day after the first Presidential debate.

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[audio:https://kvnonews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Biden-in-CB-MIX-PM.mp3]

Biden’s visit to Iowa is a strategic one as Election Day looms and Iowa remains a critical swing state. In fact, early voting is already underway in that state, and Biden urged the crowd to waste no time. “You don’t have to wait to Election Day,” Biden told supporters at the Mid-America Center. “So elect us today. Get out there now and vote. Why wait?”

Biden came out swinging against Gov. Mitt Romney less than a day after President Obama faced off with him in the first debate. The President was criticized for failing to dodge Romney’s punches on stage. But Biden worked to make up for it, bringing up popular campaign trail issues like Gov. Romney’s failure to release more than two years of his tax returns, which Obama did not mention in the debate.

“It’s bad enough that Governor Romney won’t release the details of his tax returns,” Biden said. “Now, he won’t even release the details about what he plans to do about your taxes.”

“Seriously,” Biden continued. “Last night, the Governor walked away from the center piece of his economic plan.”

Biden referred to Romney’s assertion in the debate that he would not approve any tax cuts that added to the federal deficit.

The Vice President also defended the President’s plan to let the Bush-era tax cuts expire at the end of the year, saying a balanced approach that involves revenue and spending cuts is required to reduce the deficit fairly. “On top of a trillion dollars of spending we’ve already cut, we’re going to ask, yes, we’re going to ask the wealthy to pay more. My heart breaks. Come on, man.”

“We want to let that trillion dollar tax cut expire so the middle class doesn’t have to bear the burden of all that money going to the super wealthy,” he added.

Biden focused much of his speech on Medicare. He accused Romney of planning to turn the popular program into a voucher system, and he took the Governor to task for criticizing the President during the debate for cutting $700 billion from Medicare, another critique Obama did not counter. That’s a claim that’s been rejected as false and refers to savings that are also included in Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan’s budget plan.

“Governor Romney just stood there and said bold-faced that we cut benefits and endangered Medicare,” he said. “Folks, who do you think Americans are going to trust? Governor Romney? Or the AMA (American Medical Association), which endorsed what we said, the American Cancer Society…the American Heart Association…the American Hospital Association and AARP that endorsed what we said.”

The President held a campaign rally in Denver today, while Romney and Ryan headed to Virginia for a campaign stop tonight. Romney’s campaign said President Obama is doing “damage control” in the aftermath of a lackluster debate performance.

More:

Romney campaigns in Omaha

Obama comes out swinging in Council Bluffs

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