After Biden, the Economic Debate Takes Shape

By Bill Scher, Campaign for America's Future. Posted August 28, 2008.

The least wealthy member of the Senate took the stage of the Democratic convention hall Wednesday night to accept the vice-presidential nomination, and sharpened the contrast between the progressive and conservative economic visions. The pressure will now be on Republican Sen. John McCain next week to either defend the conservative vision or acknowledge its failures and respond with new ideas.

In introducing himself to the broader electorate, Sen. Joe Biden of sought to show that he gets what's going on in America, not with stats, but with a clear sense of what goes on around middle-class kitchen tables. From the prepared remarks:

Almost every night, I take the train home to Wilmington, sometimes very late. As I look out the window at the homes we pass, I can almost hear what they're talking about at the kitchen table after they put the kids to bed.

Like millions of Americans, they're asking questions as profound as they are ordinary. Questions they never thought they would have to ask:

• Should mom move in with us now that dad is gone?
• Fifty, sixty, seventy dollars to fill up the car?
• Winter's coming. How we gonna pay the heating bills?
• Another year and no raise?


• Did you hear the company may be cutting our health care?
• Now, we owe more on the house than it's worth. How are we going to send the kids to college?
• How are we gonna be able to retire?

When John McCain proposes $200 billion in new tax breaks for corporate America, $1 billion alone for just eight of the largest companies, but no relief for 100 million American families, that's not change; that's more of the same.

Even today, as oil companies post the biggest profits in history--a half-trillion dollars in the last five years--he wants to give them another $4 billion in tax breaks. But he voted time and again against incentives for renewable energy: solar, wind, biofuels. That's not change; that's more of the same.

Millions of jobs have left our shores, yet John continues to support tax breaks for corporations that send them there. That's not change; that's more of the same.

He voted 19 times against raising the minimum wage. For people who are struggling just to get to the next day, that's not change; that's more of the same.

Barack Obama will reform our tax code. He'll cut taxes for 95 percent of the American people who draw a paycheck. That's the change we need.

Barack Obama will transform our economy by making alternative energy a genuine national priority, creating 5 million new jobs and finally freeing us from the grip of foreign oil. That's the change we need.

Barack Obama knows that any country that out teaches us today will out-compete us tomorrow. He'll invest in the next generation of teachers. He'll make college more affordable. That's the change we need.

Barack Obama will bring down health care costs by $2,500 for the typical family, and, at long last, deliver affordable, accessible health care for all Americans. That's the change we need.

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