Biden made his comments while speaking in Ohio. Biden: Mitt lost on economic reality

Vice President Joe Biden says Mitt Romney doesn’t understand the economic realities most Americans face — and the presumptive GOP nominee’s time at Bain Capital proves it.

“He’s a patriot. He’s a generous man. He gives to his church. He has a beautiful family. But he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get what’s at the core of all of this. It’s about people’s dignity,” Biden said in a campaign speech in Youngstown, Ohio, where he balanced near-whispers with passionate shouting as he described a “stark and fundamental contrast.”


Republicans, including Romney, “don’t get us, they don’t get who we are,” the vice president said, reminding the crowd at M7 Technologies — a firm that manufactures advanced measurement equipment — of his middle class roots and the Obama administration’s efforts to stimulate the creation of new jobs, especially in the manufacturing industry, to help strengthen the middle class.

By contrast, “there’s Romney economics, which says as long as the government helps the guys at the very top do well, workers and small businesses and communities can be left to fend for themselves,” Biden said. “He not only wants to take us back to the future, he wants to double down on those failed policies.”

Biden used the speech to double down on this week’s new attacks on Romney’s record as the head of Bain Capital, linking them to the argument that Romney’s concerned with the benefiting the rich and no one else. He told the story of GST Steel, the Kansas City company that went bankrupt after it was taken over by Bain and others. Workers who lost their jobs and their retirement benefits when the company collapsed were the focus of an attack ad released by the Obama campaign on Monday.

“Romney made sure the guys at top got to play by a different set of rules, he ran massive debts, and the middle class lost. And folks, he thinks this experience will help our economy?” Biden asked. “Where I come from, past is prologue.”

Biden was introduced by former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, who lost his 2010 reelection bid, and by Randy Johnson, a man who worked for Ampad, a company that went into bankruptcy after Romney and his colleagues made $100 million in profits. At Ampad, Biden said, Romney focused on “laying on debt, laying off workers, doing what’s best for the top while everyone else suffers.”

The Obama administration, meanwhile, has in Biden’s view led an economy recovery where not just the top is benefiting. “Things really are starting to come back. There are signs of life and hope in the heartland,” as “the kinds of jobs you can build a middle class family on” are being created, he said. “It’s not just manufacturing that’s coming back. The middle class is coming back. America is coming back.”

Amanda Henneberg, a Romney spokeswoman, responded to Biden’s speech in a statement, saying that Romney “helped create more jobs in his private sector career and as governor than President Obama has for the entire nation.”

Obama, she added, “wasted billions of taxpayer dollars on unsuccessful policies that have not created jobs, burdened future generations with massive debt, and resulted in failed investments like Solyndra. With 23 million Americans struggling to find jobs, voters understand that it’s time to elect a successful businessman like Mitt Romney, who will put people back to work and address the serious economic challenges facing our country.”

Meanwhile Wednesday, Obama was speaking to business owners at Taylor Gourmet, a sandwich shop not far from the White House. Obama told a small group of entrepreneurs that their success “stories obviously are being duplicated across the country,” but that lawmakers could to do more to help by passing new tax credits for small businesses, one of the items on his “to-do” list for Congress, which also includes passing bills to help homeowners refinance their mortgages.

Obama brought some sandwiches back to the White House as hosted a lunch meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

“My message to Congress — and I’m going to have a chance to see the congressional leadership when I get back to the White House — I’m going to offer them some hoagies while they’re there — is let’s go ahead and act to help build and sustain momentum for our economy,” Obama said ahead of the meeting at the sandwich shop. “There will be more than enough time for us to campaign and politick, but let’s make sure that we don’t lose steam at a time when a lot of folks like these are feeling pretty optimistic and are ready to go.”