Biden said that under the President’s tax policies, economic stewardship and erratic leadership, the middle class people of Pennsylvania have suffered. He pointed out that the rising cost of health care and college and housing have cut out the economic “breathing room” that once defined life in the middle class.
“This administration has no idea what hard-working, decent, ordinary Americans are going through,” Biden said during his speech, lamenting the struggles of middle class workers to make ends meet in the current economical atmosphere.
“Go back to your old neighborhoods and ask them how they’re doing,” Biden said. “Too many middle-class and working-class folks can’t look their kids in the eye any longer and say it’s going to be OK and mean it.”
Biden said that he planned to fix these apparent problems and others by repealing Republican tax cuts for the wealthy, taking action on climate change, and strengthening gun regulations. He added that he planned on expanding spending on education and government funded health care. Biden also railed against high CEO salaries and steeply increasing corporate profits.
Pointing out that wages have largely remained flat in comparison to inflation costs which have been ballooning in recent years for all but those in the most wealthy brackets, Biden’s solution to this is to apply tax charges that would treat capital gains on investments as wages.
Even with this plan on the books, Biden added, “I think corporations can do a lot of good things.”
Biden peppered the speech with stories about his Scranton childhood, including a story about his father taking a “long walk” upstairs to the younger Biden’s room to tell him they had to move to Delaware because Biden’s father had lost his job.
“I think the longest walk his father ever made was to drop off $400 million in his trust account,” Biden said of Trump after finishing the story, a reference to Fred Trump’s funding of President Trump’s real estate and promotions empires.
“All these young people want drastic change,” said Elaine Sparko, a 65-year-old retired teacher who came to hear Biden to the Associated Press. “I think he is a person who could stand toe to toe with Trump. I think we need a moderate.”
