Joe Biden on Budget & Economy Vice President; previously Democratic Senator (DE)

Sub-sections under Budget & Economy:
• Bailout + Stimulus
• Other issues under Budget & Economy

Reduce spending by $1T; increase taxes by $600B; cut debt

We're determined to continue in a balanced way to cut our debt in the coming years and have made significant strides towards that goal. Last year, with the help of my colleagues in the US Congress, we reached a difficult agreement on reducing our spending over the next 10 years by close to $1 trillion. Just the end of this year, we agreed on a very difficult decision about our tax code, raising another $600 billion, making significant compromises.

Increase debt ceiling & Commission on Fiscal Responsibility

Erskine Bowles cut right to the chase. "Leave your friends at home," he said. "They just create problems when you get to Washington."

As banks become profitable, start fundamental reforms

1996: Accused of sweetheart deal on sale of personal home

Obama’s economic plan focuses on middle class

BIDEN: It’s evidence that the policies of the last 8 years have been the worst policies we’ve had. Obama laid out criteria for a rescue plan. He, first of all, said there has to be oversight. Second, he said you have to focus on folks on Main Street. Third, he said that you have to treat the taxpayers like investors. And, last, you have to make sure CEOs don’t benefit from this. We’re going to focus on the middle class, because when the middl class is growing, the economy grows and everybody does well.

PALIN: A good barometer is go to a kid’s soccer game and turn to a parent and ask, “How are you feeling about the economy?” You’re going to hear fear. Two years ago, it was John McCain who pushed so hard with the Fannie & Freddie reform measures. There will be greater oversight, thanks to John McCain’s bipartisan efforts that he was so instrumental in bringing folks together, even suspending his own campaign to put politics aside.

Deregulation got us into the housing crisis

BIDEN: Barack warned about the sub prime mortgage crisis. We let Wall Street run wild. John McCain thought the answer is that tried and true Republican response, deregulate, deregulate. And guess what? The middle class needs tax relief. They need it now.

PALIN: It was predator lenders who tried to talk Americans into thinking that it was smart to buy a $300,000 house if we could only afford a $100,000 house. There was deception, and there was greed and there is corruption. Joe Six Pack, hockey moms across the nation, we need to band together and say never again. We need to demand from the federal government strict oversight of those entities in charge of our investments and our savings. Let’s do what our parents told us before we probably even got that first credit card. Don’t live outside of our means.

Balancing budget is about priorities; GOP made wrong choices

A: You don’t have to make a choice of balancing the budget and/or leading with the priorities that most of us feel strongly about, from health care, to education, to the environment. And I’ll just put it in real stark terms: It’s about priorities. Just by eliminating the war, & eliminating the $200 billion in tax cuts that goes to the top 1%, if you add it all up, [with $350B in cuts to military special programs], that would allow me to do everything I want to do -- my priorities on education, health care and the environment -- and still bring down the deficit by $150 billion. So, the Republicans are trying to sucker us into this, “You either have to balance the budget and do nothing to make people’s lives better, or you’re going to balloon the deficit.” They have ballooned the deficit with their bad priorities.

Save Pentagon spending by getting the troops out of Iraq

More transparency for hedge funds and private equity funds

A: The answer is yes. But we need more transparency, particularly with regard to hedge funds and private equity funds. They are the ones that are causing this thing to go under. And there’s no transparency, no accountability. We don’t know how deep this problem is. I think it’s almost as deep in terms of dollars, not liability, as the savings and loan crisis.

Invest in new programs by ending war & eliminating tax cuts

• A: First of all, we’re going to end this war. It’s $100 billion a year we’re spending.
• Eliminate the tax cuts for people making over a million bucks --that’s $85 billion a year.
• Eliminate the tax break for investment on dividends--$195 billion.

Q: But, senator, we have a deficit. We have Social Security and Medicare looming.

A: The answer is you have to put it all on the table. We put Social Security on the right path for 60 years. Social Security’s not the hard one to solve. Medicare, that is the gorilla in the room, and you’ve got to put all of it on the table.

$90B stimulus program had only 0.4% waste

BIDEN: Go on our website: [Ryan] sent me two letters saying, "Can you send me some stimulus money for companies here in the state of Wisconsin?" We sent millions of dollars.

Q: You did ask for stimulus money, correct?

RYAN: On two occasions, we advocated for constituents who were applying for grants. That's what we do for all constituents.

BIDEN: I love that. This is such a bad program, and he writes me a letter saying it will create growth and jobs. His words. That program was investigated and Congress said it was a model: less than 4/10 of 1% waste or fraud in the program. And all this talk about cronyism--they investigated & did not find one single piece of evidence. It was a good idea. This stopped us from going off the cliff. It set the conditions to be able to grow again. 40% of those green jobs didn't go under. It's a better batting average than investment bankers have.

We inherited a god-awful mess; just level the playing field

[Ryan] says that 30% of the American people are takers. Romney points out, 47% of the people won't take responsibility. He's talking about my mother and father. And he's talking about the places I grew up in, my neighbors in Scranton and Claymont. He's talking about the people that have built this country. All they're looking for is an even shot. When they've been given the shot, they've done it. Whenever you level the playing field, they've been able to move.

And they want a little bit of peace of mind. And the president and I are not going to rest until that playing field is leveled, they in fact have a clear shot and they have peace of mind, until they can turn to their kid and say with a degree of confidence, "Honey, it's going to be OK." That's what this is all about.

TARP stuck in our throats, but it worked

Recovery Act is slowly making progress, but not good enough

FactCheck: McCain didn’t “lurch” from “strong” to “crisis”

The Facts:On Sept. 15, at 9 AM, McCain said: “There’s been tremendous turmoil in our financial markets. I think still, the fundamentals of our economy are strong. But these are very, very difficult times.“ About 3 hours later, McCain said: ”We’re going to put an end to the abuses on Wall Street that have resulted in the crisis that we are seeing unfold today.“ At the same event, McCain said, ”The American workers, those are the fundamentals of America & I think they’re strong. But those fundamentals are being threatened today because of greed & corruption on Wall Street.“

The Verdict: Misleading. Biden takes some of McCain’s remarks out of context.

Bail out Fannie & Freddie, fairly, to stabilize market

A: Well, no, it's not fair, but I don't think that's what's going to happen. There's three principles that have to play here for this to work, in my view.

1. Make sure that you help homeowners and stabilize, at the same time, financial institutions.
2. Make sure that you're not bailing out shareholders vs. the taxpayers.
3. Make sure that they're still in a position to be able to continue to lend, to continue to have elasticity to deal with the market.

Q: All investors suffer equally?

A: They should. We'll see what the plan is.

Voted NO on $40B in reduced federal overall spending.

Voted NO on prioritizing national debt reduction below tax cuts.

Voted YES on 1998 GOP budget.

Voted YES on Balanced-budget constitutional amendment.