.-') _ .-') _
( OO ) ) ( OO ) )
.-----. ,--./ ,--,' ,--./ ,--,'
' .--./ | \ | |\ | \ | |\
| |('-. | \| | )| \| | )
/_) |OO )| . |/ | . |/
|| |`-'| | |\ | | |\ |
(_' '--'\ | | \ | | | \ |
`-----' `--' `--' `--' `--'
lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Biden pushes his economic populism on the trail in Pennsylvania as
Trump sits in a New York courtroom
By Arlette Saenz, Sam Fossum, Tami Luhby and Michael Williams, CNN
Updated:
3:37 PM EDT, Tue April 16, 2024
Source: CNN
is seeking to make during a three-day swing through Pennsylvania with
campaign officials framing the election as a debate between his
“kitchen table” Scranton outlook and Trump’s “Mar-a-Lago
vision.”
The trip, which kicked off Tuesday in Biden’s childhood hometown of
Scranton, also will set up a stark split screen as the president is on
the campaign trail while of the week in a
Biden’s speech on Tuesday centered heavily on economic populism as he
sought to portray Trump as out of touch with Americans’ concerns -
and himself as a folksy, scrappy kid from Scranton who holds the
interests of the average American at heart.
“Folks,” Biden said on Tuesday, “where we come from matters. When
I look at the economy I don’t see it through the eyes of Mar-a-Lago,
I see it through the eyes of Scranton – and that’s not
hyperbole.”
Biden’s Pennsylvania push comes as he’s also seeking to move the
needle with voters who continue to hold sour views . Recent polling has
also fewer than seven months from Election Day.
To that end, he referenced the that took place during Trump’s term at
the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Biden called his rival “Donald
‘Herbert Hoover’ Trump,” a reference to the 31st president who
oversaw the beginning of the Great Depression – the largest economic
crisis in US history that saw nearly a quarter of all Americans
unemployed at its peak.
It’s not the first time Biden has made that comparison – and some
of Hoover’s descendants have with it. The bulk of the job losses that
took place under Trump happened with an unprecedented pandemic
The president slammed Trump’s pledge to extend the sweeping tax cuts
that congressional Republicans approved in 2017 – a measure that
reduced taxes for most Americans, but from which the rich benefited far
more than others.
Meanwhile, Biden is campaigning on raising taxes on the wealthy to fund
his social and other priorities while protecting those who earn less
than $400,000 a year from tax hikes.
“Trickle-down economics failed the middle class,” Biden said. “It
failed America.”
“The truth is, Donald Trump embodies that failure,” he added.
In 2020, Biden used his hometown to frame the election as a “Scranton
vs. Park Avenue” choice for voters. Ahead of the president’s trip
this week, campaign officials sought to cast the election as a debate
between Scranton and Trump’s Mar-a-Lago country club.
“You got Joe Biden, a candidate who sees the world from the kitchen
table where he grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Donald Trump, who
sees the world from his country club down at Mar-a-Lago. Nowhere is
that contrast of world views on display more clearly, than when it
comes to who each candidate believes should be paying more in taxes and
who they believe should be paying less,” said Biden campaign
communications director Michael Tyler.
The president will also travel to Pittsburgh on Wednesday, where he
will speak at the United Steelworkers Headquarters, and Philadelphia
for a campaign event on Thursday where he will continue to push his
economic message.
Differing views on taxes
Biden’s tax plans contain a variety of tax increases on the wealthy
and big corporations, which he wants to use to shore up Medicare’s
finances, create two new tax breaks for buying homes, temporarily
extend the enhanced child tax credit, reduce child care costs and
permanently extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies, among other
initiatives.
His , which outlines the policies that he will also campaign on, calls
for a 25% minimum tax on all the income of the , including their
appreciated assets, which are not currently taxed. It would hit those
with a net worth of more than $100 million.
Biden also proposes taxing capital gains at the same rate as wage
income for those earning more than $1 million and increasing the net
investment income tax rate on earned and unearned income above $400,000
to 5%, up from 3.8%.
The president wants to increase the corporate tax rate to 28%, up from
the 21% rate set by the GOP tax cut package in 2017, and raise the
corporate minimum tax rate on billion-dollar corporations to 21%, from
15%. Also, he would reduce incentives for multinational businesses to
book profits in low-tax jurisdictions and raise the tax rate on their
foreign earnings to 21% from 10.5%. Plus, he would quadruple the tax
on companies that buy back their own stock instead of investing in
workers or lowering prices.
Trump sought to preempt Biden’s speech with a social media post
Monday touting the 2017 tax cuts and criticizing Biden’s plans to
raise taxes for the wealthy and corporations.
“If Joe Biden gets his way you will soon be facing colossal tax
hikes, the likes of which no one has ever seen before,” Trump said
in a video on Truth Social.
The former president has told supporters – including – that
extending the 2017 tax cuts will be one of his main goals for a second
term. The law reduced individual and corporate income tax rates,
changed international tax rules, repealed personal exemptions,
increased the standard deduction and child tax credit, limited or
restricted certain itemized deductions and doubled the estate tax
exemption, among other provisions.
Most Americans benefited from the tax law, but the wealthy benefited
the most.
Nearly all the individual income and estate tax provisions expire at
the end of 2025, while most of the corporate measures are permanent.
The next president and Congress will have to deal with the expiring
provisions next year.
Biden’s tax returns
Ahead of the trip, Biden used Tax Day to tee up another contrast with
his predecessor by releasing his tax 2023 return. Trump declined to
voluntarily release his tax returns as president.
“President Biden believes that all occupants of the Oval Office
should be open and honest with the American people,” the White House
said in a statement on Monday, “and that the longstanding tradition
of annually releasing presidential tax returns should continue
unbroken.”
The president’s events this week come as his campaign continues to
build out its infrastructure Pennsylvania, where recent polling has
shown no clear leader in a two-way race between Biden and Trump.
Biden campaign battleground states director Dan Kanninen told reporters
on a call Monday that the Biden campaign is investing heavily in the
commonwealth with a particular focus on driving turnout in
Philadelphia. The Biden campaign has opened 14 new offices in
Pennsylvania in March as they work to train volunteers and hire
campaign staff.
“We’re obviously looking at Pennsylvania right now where the
president is spending the week campaigning, and it’s a textbook
example of how we’re going to run those votes,” said Kanninen.
Campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez also released a campaign
strategy memo ahead of the visit, pointing to the coordinated
campaign’s early investments in Allegheny County, home to Pittsburgh,
as well as in the central part of the state in York and Lancaster
counties – two counties Trump won in 2020 where the team sees
“opportunities for Democratic growth as shown by gains made at the
local level.”
Chavez Rodriguez argued Biden’s support for unions, abortion rights,
and protecting democracy will play with Pennsylvania voters in
November.
“With all of these issues remaining salient for voters and Trump and
MAGA Republicans only becoming more extreme, they continue to alienate
the voters that decide elections in Pennsylvania – and show no signs
of being able to win them back,” she wrote.
This story has been updated with additional developments on Tuesday.
DIR <- back to index