The TicketBiden on taxes
Basics:
• Insists that tax revenue increases should be part of a new budget deal with Republicans.
• Tax breaks for "millionaires" are part of obsolete, trickle down economics that hurt middle class.
• Obama-Biden "Buffet rule" proposes that millionaires should pay minimum of 30% in taxes.
• Against Romney-Ryan slashing taxes across-the-board, cuts for wealthy got us into the current deficit and "buried" the middle class.
Fact check:
Romney and Ryan have been pushing a recent Biden sound bite featuring the VP saying the Romney-Ryan tax plan would crush the middle class, which has been "buried for the past four years."
Out of context, it sounds like Biden is arguing that the Obama administration has actively hampered the middle class with taxes rather than helped to revive it. The Romney campaign has been running ads suggesting as much, and Ryan is probably aching to use the "buried" line against his opponent as he pitches a very different tax plan.
But a viewing of the whole clip delivers a different message: Biden was complaining about Bush-era taxes that sparked the Great Recession by favoring the wealthy and burdening middle-income Americans.
In short: Biden was arguing that negative effects of the Bush tax-cuts have lingered the past four years, and further warning that the Romney-Ryan plan is more of an already losing formula.
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