Vice President Joe Biden warns that if Mitt Romney is elected President, the country will return to the “failed policies” that caused a near-economic collapse in 2008.
Biden rallied supporters at Detroit’s Renaissance High School Wednesday. It was a stop on a brief campaign swing through Michigan that also included a fundraiser in West Bloomfield.
Olympic boxing gold medalist and Flint native Claressa Shields introduced Biden to the crowd. Biden praised the scrappy 17-year-old as a perfect example of Michigan’s—and the country’s—fighting spirit.
Crediting President Obama with the US auto industry’s revival, Biden says their re-election campaign can be summed up with the bumper sticker slogan, “General Motors is alive, Osama bin Laden is dead!”
Biden says the Mitt Romney and Republicans have gone to dangerous extremes, warning their economic policies would protect tax breaks for the wealthy over preserving spending on education, Medicare, and other programs that benefit the middle class.
“This isn’t your father’s Republican party anymore,” Biden said, adding: “It isn’t even Mitt Romney’s father’s Republican party anymore.” George Romney was Michigan’s Governor in the 1960s.
Biden says there’s “overwhelming evidence those policies won’t work”—but Republicans are trying to revive them, and shift the blame onto President Obama.
“What they didn’t say is that the day we were sworn in, on January 20th 2009, we inherited a deficit, a bill, for more than $1 trillion,” Biden said. “And a middle class that was devastated.”
Republicans will follow up Biden’s visit with Michigan campaign stops of their own this week.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker will campaign for Romney in Grand Rapids Thursday, where he’s expected to emphasize Romney’s record as a “proven job creator” who will help restore the middle class.
Romney and his pick for Vice President, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, are slated for a stop in northern Oakland County on Friday.
