Biden: It's Patriotic For Wealthy Americans To Pay Higher Taxes

CANTON, Ohio — Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden on Thursday called Republican John McCain's answers to the current economic crisis "the ultimate bridge to nowhere" and said paying higher taxes would be patriotic for wealthier Americans.

In response, McCain said raising taxes in this economic climate is "just plain dumb."

Biden said the GOP presidential nominee was out of touch with average people's problems, hoping to resonate with voters in economically troubled northeast Ohio and keep pressure on McCain during a week of bad news from U.S. markets and financial institutions.

Polls in Ohio, a swing state, show a tight race.

"John McCain's answers for the economy _ and we're in such desperate shape _ is the ultimate bridge to nowhere," Biden told an audience of 2,500 on a turf field outside the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The reference to the infamous Alaska project dubbed "the Bridge to Nowhere" was a dig at McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who supported building the bridge until Congress moved to kill it as an example of wasteful spending. She has since claimed she stopped the nearly $400 million bridge, designed to link a southeastern Alaska town to its airport on a nearby island, and told Congress "thanks, but no thanks" when, in fact, the state diverted the money to other projects.

In an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," Biden said wealthier taxpayers would indeed pay more under the proposals of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Under his plan, people earning more than $250,000 a year would pay more in taxes while those earning less _ the vast majority of taxpayers _ would receive a tax cut.

"We want to take money and put it back in the pocket of middle-class people," Biden said. Of those who would pay more, he said: "It's time to be patriotic ... time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut."

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McCain misstated Biden's remark when he told supporters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that Biden had said "raising taxes is patriotic."

"Raising taxes in a tough economy isn't patriotic. It's not a badge of honor. It's just plain dumb," McCain said. "The billions in tax increases that Sen. Obama is proposing would kill even more jobs during tough economic times. I'm not going to let that happen."

Palin piled on, too.

"Joe Biden said it again today, raising taxes is about patriotism," she said in Cedar Rapids, where she appeared with McCain. "To the rest of America, that's not patriotism. Raising taxes is about killing jobs and hurting small businesses and making things worse."

Biden responded during remarks to about 150 people at a Laborers' International Union of North America Local 894 in Akron.

"Tell me how everybody is better off? The point I want to make is, and I mean this sincerely, wealthy people are just as patriotic as poor people. We just have not asked anything of them," Biden said.

Although McCain claims Obama would raise taxes, the independent Tax Policy Center and other groups conclude that four out of five U.S. households would receive tax cuts under Obama's proposals.

In a new TV ad that repeats widely debunked claims about the Democratic tax plan, McCain's campaign charges that Obama would increase the federal government amid an economic crisis. Contending that "a big government casts a big shadow on us all," the ad features the image of a shadow slowly covering a sleeping baby as a narrator misstates the reach of the Obama tax proposal.

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Associated Press writer Douglass K. Daniel in Washington contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

Obama campaign: http://www.barackobama.com/index.php

McCain campaign: http://www.johnmccain.com/

McCain ad "Dome": http://www.youtube.com/watch?vkjvzyFyMO-k

Comments

[neurologymatters]

There should not be a cap for Social Security taxable amount. When a CEO reaches the yearly maximum taxable amount in one month's salary, we have a major problem.

[mezz1962a]

It is also patriotic to give to Charity....Biden gave $0 so he is a communist

[jhnwlk]

Really? And you get this information where, exactly? The voices inside your head maybe?

[gisellestwocents]

Where do you get your information? Tax disclosures? Just because he didn't deduct, doesn't mean he didn't donate.

And if he didn't donate, maybe that just means that he isn't as affluent as people might assume. That would mean that he understands the struggles of other WORKING PARENTS STRUGGLING TO MAKE ENDS MEET.

Someone we can trust to look out for our interests for a change.

Joe Biden, SUPERDAD. Former single parent. Successful congressman with a beautiful and loving family. Well known and admired by MILLIONS throughout this country and the world.

[Kate4Change]

Biden is right! The Republicans once again got us into this terrible economic disaster! We were so close to the depression and thankfully, we bailed out AIG before the economy crashed to the bottom. You think $1 trillion was bad... what if we waited until all our companies crumbled? It was a necessary emergency solution to help the market survive.

Now regarding the taxes being patriotic. As Americans we are expected to pay taxes. Since Bush has been in office, the middle class and below have been paying the brunt of the taxes while the wealthy got more with the intent they would reinvest it in the good old USA. The problem is that it didn't trickle down, no,not one penny. What happened? The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. So as the saying goes "learn from your history", if you look back when we had economic stability it was when the middle class got the tax cuts, not the rich and we had more regulation. It's the trickle up that works (i.e. Clinton/Obama).

When a country is $9 trillion and growing in debt, you have to get revenue and cut unnecessary spending (Iraq war costing us $10 billion a month). Tax increases to the top 1% who can afford it makes sense. I think they can do without an 8th house this year. Yeah... I call that patriotic!

[thefallen]

Let's just face the fact that as a Democrat from Delaware, the home base of Credit corporations Biden has nothing credible to say in this crisis and leave it at that.

[canobs]

From TaxProf Blog:

Joe Biden today released ten years of his personal income tax returns, drawing further attention to the tax issues raised by Sarah Palin’s tax problems associated with her per diem reimbursements while governor of Alaska. I wonder, though, if the move might backfire because the returns show that the Bidens have been amazingly tight-fisted when it comes to their charitable giving. Despite income ranging from $210,432 - $321,379 over the ten-year period, the Bidens have given only $120 - $995 per year to charity, which amounts to 0.06% - 0.31% of their income.

[mysterygirl18]

Palin venting site:http://www.myspace.com/wakeupnowpeople

[ObjectiveRealist]

John McCain is not just out of touch with my problems, he is out of touch with my ideals.

"Biden said the GOP presidential nominee was out of touch with average people's problems, hoping to resonate with voters in economically troubled northeast Ohio and keep pressure on McCain during a week of bad news from U.S. markets and financial institutions."

It is not my job to undertake personally, as a taxpayer, thousands of dollars of additional tax, or future tax in the form of national debt burden, to subsidize billionaires and their corporate shelters after they adopt reckless lending practices or buy the outstanding loans of those who have. This is a moral issue, not just financial and political. The first candidate to identify the source of this crisis as the Gramm-Leach-Biley amendment and the ideology responsible for it, wins.

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=106&session=1&vote=00105#position

[dadw5boys]

HOW DO REPUBLICANS PAY OFF THIER DEBTS ????

OH, Sorry forgot reorganization, bankruptize, and partial bankruptize is how .

But when they take so much for so many years as unearned profits then had those bills to the American People there comes a time when you have to pay up !

You can lie cheat and steal so long but it comes home one day !!!!!

[thiggins68]

Paying a fair tax is patriotic.

Taxing someone a higher rate because they are successful isn't patriotic.

Seems like punishing someone for being successful.

Successful people are generally very chaitable however. And they should be.

Unless you are Barack Obama who gave less than 1% between 2000 - 2004.
He did give $60,000 (6%) in 2006 most of which went to the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.
He has been more generous recently giving $240,000 last year from his $4.2 millions in earnings in 2007.

I guess running for President makes you feel more generous.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/09/insight_into_candidates_throug.html

[RoloTomassi]

"Successful people are generally very chaitable however. And they should be."

Sorry, gotta call BS on that one.

[Vyvjala]

And the republican doctrine is; "when it comes to giving, we stop at nothing."

[doogiedude]

Taxing someone a higher rate because they are not wealthy isn't patriotic.

Seems like punishing someone for not being wealthy.

The non-wealthy can hope the wealthy will decide to be generally very charitable.

Just sayin

[Birdman]

Really hmmm it is a proven fact that the rich use more of the tax payers money. Look at the recent bailouts for example the poor surely have no means to buy a house so they woudl hardly be inmpacted by a Fannie mae Freddie mac failure nor do they own stock or have any money in a bank so who is benifitting from the trillion dollar bailout? THE RICH.

[suec03]

See my previous post below that Bill Gates father and Warren Buffett, and Paul Volker who wrote the forward to William Gates' book all feel that appropriate taxation of wealth is the way successful people pay back to maintain the government and society that allowed them to succeed and get rich.

Of course PAYING your taxes to support the services provided by government is patriotic. McCain slyly twisted that to allege that Sen. Biden felt TAXING was patriotic.

[MotherGinSling]

Joe Biden is right. While our troops are killed and maimed in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush never asked the rest of us to sacrifice anything. He tells us to go shopping instead! Why aren't there War Bonds? Why wouldn't rich people want to do their part to build our nation and help the less fortunate (I think a lot of them do)? Our country is currently falling apart at the seams and in dire need of rescue. For a peek at what patriotism used to mean: "World War II Rationing, The Home Front": http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1674.html "While life during the WW2 meant daily sacrifice, few complained because they knew it was the men and women in uniform who were making the greater sacrifice. A poster released by the Office of War Information stated simply, “Do with less so they’ll have enough.”

[suec03]

Bill Gates father, William Gates, Sr., co-wrote a book, "Wealth and Our Commonwealth" (Beacon Press), with forward by former Federal Reserve Chairman and current Obama adviser Paul Volcker. In it he argued that the Estate Tax should not be abolished, for two reasons. He felt that society benefits from the redistribution of wealth that the estate tax provides, and that the wealthy should pay back for the government maintenance of the type of economy in which the wealthy were able to prosper. Warren Buffett also came out in support of the estate tax for these same reasons.

One would wish that Warren Buffett and William Gates, Sr. would speak up now to support an increase the marginal income tax rate on those who earn incomes of over $250,000.00 per year. I understand that Warren Buffett says much of his earnings are as capital gains at a lower rate, but I think their argument in favor of the wealthy paying estate taxes should be extended to support returning the marginal tax rates on those earning more than $250,000.00 per year to the rate in effect during the Clinton administration. Couldn't Sen. Obama ask former Chairman Volcker, as his advisor, to say a few words publicly to this effect? Could Warren Buffett please make a comment in support? Don't just leave Sen. Biden hanging there. He needs someone with the right financial institution, economist or private sector credentials to back him up to shut down the McCain attack.

[JustYurAvgGuy]

Pay more taxes = patriotic? It's a joke right? How about the Congress and Senate become a whole lot more responsible -overnight - with the staggering amount of money they already extract from us.

In the 1970's our legislators abandoned the practice of controlling the country's money supply by use of fiscal policy (admission of incompetency?) and wholly handed the keys to the financial kingdom over to the Federal Reserve (with oversight from Congress but NOT a governmental agency) to work their magic with monetary policy. The result of which has caused wild swings in interest rates and financial markets. Today, a mere 30 years later, on the brink of financial Armageddon, we now see how that has worked out..

Joe Biden, I for one think there will in fact be a better choice of action than sending you and your colleagues more of our hard earned dollars. Can you say American Revolution 2.0?

[RobinSeattle]

HuffPost's Pick

Stop electing incumbents who blow our tax money then.

And here are some words from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations:

"The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations

[RoloTomassi]

Can you say SILLY SELF-CONCERNED WHINER?

That's the probelm you see...but o fo course, no, you can't see--it's not about you personally. You piss and moan about this stuff as though you are going to be bankrupted by an addtional few cents on the dollar.

Pathetic.

[PartyPartyParty]

My late Republican grandfather, a steel company executive, would have agreed with Senator Biden. Grandpa had no problem paying his fair share of taxes -- which the rich in this country did for a while, after FDR and the New Deal put a stop to the last wave of privateers.

Now if Obama/Biden would only start talking about reinstating Glass-Steagall, I might actually be encouraged.

[SENATORCALLENBOWE]

THE CLASS OF THE NEW GENERATION THINKS SO 2 ;) TAX CUT FOR THE UNBREAKABLE ;)

[gcallaghan]

those who stand to lose the most before it's all gone can only protect themselves by seeing to it that those with less do not lose all they own