Vice President Joe Biden ended his 2-day campaign trip through South Florida Saturday afternoon with a rally in Fort Myers. Biden spoke before a crowd of more than 2,000 people at the Wa-Ke Hatchee Park Recreation Center in South Fort Myers.
Biden maintained his focus on Medicare, criticizing the Romney/Ryan plan saying it would reduce benefits and increase out-of-pocket costs for seniors and lead to insolvency of the Medicare trust fund by 2016. “We’ve seen this movie before,” said Biden. “Massive tax cuts for the very wealthy. Letting Wall Street and big banks write their own rules again. We know how it ended. It ended with a catastrophe for the middle class and the Great Recession of 2008 and ladies and gentlemen, I’m telling you today, we will not go back to that policy.”
Vice President Biden outlined Mr. Obama’s four point plan which includes the creation of one million new domestic manufacturing jobs by taking action against countries that “undercut American jobs” and providing tax incentives to companies that bring jobs back to the U.S. That plan includes reducing oil imports by 50% by 2020 through investment in the renewable energy sector. It would also include hiring and retaining one hundred thousand new math and science teachers to better prepare today’s students for tomorrow’s high-tech manufacturing jobs and ending the war in Afghanistan.
Vice President Biden did not directly reference the leaked video of Mitt Romney’s comments about 47% of Americans directly, but ended his speech with what he called a message for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. “America is neither dependent, nor in decline and gentlemen, it’s never been a good bet to bet against the American people,” said Biden. “They have never let this country down. So with your help we will win Florida. With your help we will represent 100% of the people still, and with your help we will win this election.”
The latest Quinnipiac University poll shows Mr. Obama leading Romney 53% to 44% in the fight for Florida’s coveted 29 electoral votes.
