The vice president called Republican claims about the Bush tax cuts 'a myth' Tuesday. Biden slams GOP's economic plan

Vice President Joe Biden took center stage Tuesday to tout a report on stimulus-funded investments in science, green and renewable energy innovation and education reforms – but not before he took a few swipes at House Minority Leader John Boehner for his “so-called” economic plan.

Just hours after Boehner gave a breakfast speech about his party’s plans to revitalize the economy, Biden slammed Boehner and Republicans, saying they lack a real economic agenda that would move the country forward. Calling for “truth in advertising,” the vice president called GOP claims about Bush-era upper-income tax-cuts “a myth,” defended President Barack Obama’s decision to let those tax cuts to expire and mocked Boehner’s demand that Obama dismiss Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and chief economic adviser Lawrence Summers.


“His chief proposal was that the president should fire his economic team,” Biden said dryly. “Very constructive advice and we thank the Leader for that.”

“So, let's just review a little history here: For eight years before we arrived, Mr. Boehner and his party ran this economy and the middle class into the ground,” Biden said. “They took the $237 billion surplus they inherited from the Clinton Administration and left us with a $1.3 trillion deficit, and, in the process, quadrupled the national debt – all before we had turned on the lights in the West Wing.”

Boehner, in a wide-ranging speech Tuesday morning in Cleveland, called for reinstatement of the tax cuts President George Bush signed into law, which are set to expire this year, and outlined several other major measures that he thinks would work toward righting the economy. He believes Obama should veto bills that would raise taxes, scrap portions of the health care overhaul law and enact a 20 percent tax cut for small businesses.

But Biden said the tax cuts Boehner favors most are the ones that benefit the wealthy while adding to the federal deficit and doing nothing to stimulate the economy or create jobs. At the same time, he added, Republicans “are blocking—by filibuster in the Senate—a $12 billion tax cut for small business, which we proposed.”

The vice president also noted that Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.) has vowed that if Republicans retake Congress, "which I will tell you they will not, they will go to quote, 'the exact same agenda' end quote, that they had" before Obama took office. "I respect them for their honesty. I respect them for stating what they think” even if it is wrong, Biden said.

“We’ve seen this movie before, and we know how it ends” in the largest economic downturn since the Great Depression, Biden said. “The American people deserve something different and something better.”

Tuesday afternoon, a spokesman for Sessions, who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, hit back.

“Vice President Biden is correct that the American people want to move forward, but they are no longer willing to be taken for a ride on the Democrats’ train of joblessness and economic uncertainty,” said NRCC spokesman Paul Lindsay. “The vice president should be reminded that while Pete Sessions is only on the ballot in one district this November, the failed Obama-Pelosi agenda of job-killing policies will be on the ballot in all 435.”

During his speech, after critiquing Boehner and the Republicans, Biden transitioned to the topic at hand – stimulus-funded scientific and educational innovation – but he took one last slap at Boehner.

“It’s striking that Mr. Boehner’s economic address was devoid of any proposal for how to improve our schools,” Biden said. “Not a word from our opponents about how to spur innovation, reduce our dependence on foreign oil or lead the world in the 21st century.”

At the event yesterday in the Old Executive Office Building beside the White House, Biden was joined by Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu, a Nobel laureate. Biden said Chu understands that “you win Nobel Prizes for doing something that has never been done before—you win for innovating.”

The vice president then went on to highlight the role of the American Reinvestiment and Recovery Act – the official name of the $787 billion economic stimulus package – in providing billions of dollars in “seed investment” for projects that the administration says are creating “tens of thousands” of new jobs in science and the green-energy sector.

“I‘ve yet to find anyone here or abroad who suggests that America’s future can be build on the industries of the 20th Century,” Biden said. “Times have changed.”

According to the report, the Recovery Act has fueled innovation in key green and renewable energy sectors like solar and wind power. More than $100 billion in Recovery Act money will go toward four “major innovation breakthroughs” in transportation, renewable energy, broadband investment, and medical research.

Of the goals that the U.S. is on track to meet, according to the report, are cutting the cost of solar energy technology in half, reducing the cost of human genome sequencing from $48,000 to less than $1,000 and doubling the U.S renewable energy generation capacity by 2012.

“We want to install as much renewable capacity in the next three years as we’ve done in the last 30,” Biden said.

He emphasized that federal investment in these new technologies have spurred investments from the private sector, adding that President Obama understands that the federal government’s role in driving innovation is limited.

“[Federal investment] has generated over $150 billion in [private] investment,” Biden said. “Non-federal dollars in new energy projects will continue to increase geometrically if we stay on course.”