Around 24 minutes into the debate, moderator Raddatz steered the conversation toward the current unemployment level, and asked of both candidates, "Can you get unemployment to under 6 percent, and how long will it take?" Mr. Biden had the first bite of the apple, and delivered an aria that shook the glass in the windows.
I don't know how long it will take. We can and we will get it under 6 percent. Let's look at - let's take a look at the facts. Let's look at where we were when we came to office. The economy was in free fall. We had -- the great recession hit; 9 million people lost their job; $1.7 - $1.6 trillion in wealth lost in equity in your homes, in retirement accounts for the middle class.
We knew we had to act for the middle class. We immediately went out and rescued General Motors. We went ahead and made sure that we cut taxes for the middle class. And in addition to that, when that occurred, what did Romney do? Romney said, "No, let Detroit go bankrupt." We moved in and helped people refinance their homes. Governor Romney said, "No, let foreclosures hit the bottom."
But it shouldn't be surprising for a guy who says 47 percent of the American people are unwilling to take responsibility for their own lives. My friend (Rep. Ryan) recently in a speech in Washington said, "33 percent of the American people are takers."
These people are my mom and dad - the people I grew up with, my neighbors. They pay more effective tax than Governor Romney pays in his federal income tax. They are elderly people who in fact are living off of Social Security. They are veterans and people fighting in Afghanistan right now who are, quote, "not paying any tax."
It's about time they take some responsibility here. Instead of signing pledges to Grover Norquist not to ask the wealthiest among us to contribute to bring back the middle class, they should be signing a pledge saying to the middle class we're going to level the playing field; we're going to give you a fair shot again; we are going to not repeat the mistakes we made in the past by having a different set of rules for Wall Street and Main Street, making sure that we continue to hemorrhage these tax cuts for the super wealthy.
They're pushing the continuation of a tax cut that will give an additional $500 billion in tax cuts to 120,000 families. And they're holding hostage the middle class tax cut because they say we won't pass -- we won't continue the middle class tax cut unless you give the tax cut for the super wealthy. It's about time they take some responsibility.
In one fell swoop: a nod to the successful auto industry bailout, a hit on Romney's 47% doctrine, a hit on Ryan's 33% doctrine, a hit on the Norquist anti-tax pledge, a hit on Romney's nebulous tax history, a reminder of the GOP's calamitous record, a hit on the GOP's desire to continue the Bush tax cuts, all of which came in a few savage minutes...and all of which was delivered with the heat and passion of someone who is legitimately angry about the matters at hand. Mr. Biden, in this small space, accomplished more than Mr. Obama did in his own 90-minute opportunity, and the simple force of it was palpable.
Mr. Biden was not done, however. Minutes later, on the subject of Detroit in particular and job growth in general, the vice president enjoyed what may well go down in history as his finest moment in politics.
I've never met two guys who are more down on America across the board. We're told everything's going bad. There are 5.2 million new jobs, private-sector jobs. If they'd get out of the way, if they'd get out of the way and let us pass the tax cut for the middle class, make it permanent, if they get out of the way and pass the jobs bill, if they get out of the way and let us allow 14 million people who are struggling to stay in their homes because their mortgages are upside down, but they never missed a mortgage payment...
Just get out of the way.
Stop talking about how you care about people. Show me something. Show me a policy. Show me a policy where you take responsibility.
And, by the way, they talk about this Great Recession as if it fell out of the sky, like, "Oh, my goodness, where did it come from?" It came from this man voting to put two wars on a credit card, to at the same time put a prescription drug benefit on the credit card, a trillion-dollar tax cut for the very wealthy. I was there. I voted against them. I said, no, we can't afford that. And now, all of a sudden, these guys are so seized with the concern about the debt that they created.
It was at this point that Paul Ryan began to look, for all the world, eerily like Mr. Bean. His reliance on campaign talking points wore raggedly thin, and as Mr. Biden gained strength and intensity, Mr. Ryan began to shrink. A welcome discussion of foreign policy regarding Afghanistan, Syria and Iran was transformed into an international policy seminar delivered by a guy who's been around the block a few times to a guy who didn't seem to know where the block was to begin with.
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12075-big-joe-and-the-joyful-noise
