President Joe Biden attacked former President Donald Trump’s “inherited” wealth on April 19 as he continued his campaign for the votes of “American workers.”
“Some folks learn very different lessons growing up than you and I did,” the president told attendees at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) conference in Washington, adding that “they” and his opponent, President Trump, learned that the best way to get rich is to inherit it.
“They learned that paying taxes is for working people, not the super-wealthy,” President Biden said. “They learned that telling people ‘you’re fired’ is something to be laughed about. Not where I come from. Not where I was raised.
“I guess that’s how they look at the world on Park Avenue and Mar-a-Lago.”
The president attempted to connect with his audience, reiterating that he came from a “working-class” background, growing up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont, Delaware.
“When I look at the economy, I don’t see through the eyes of Mar-a-Lago,” he said. “I literally see through the eyes of Scranton, where I grew up... I see it through the eyes of working people like you and the basic values that you represent: honesty, decency, hard work, faith.”
It was the middle class who built America, not Wall Street, the president said, and it was unions that built the middle class.
He criticized President Trump’s record, saying he failed to deliver on infrastructure promises, appointed “union-busters” to the National Labor Relations Board, opposed an increase to the federal minimum wage, and sought to repeal the climate law, which would “gut all those new jobs” created for projects like offshore wind farms.
President Biden also repeated his administration’s dedication to canceling student debt “despite the Supreme Court and our Republican friends trying to block us” and his disapproval of President Trump’s $2 trillion tax cuts, which he says “exploded” the national deficit and “overwhelmingly benefited” the wealthy and corporations.
“It’s going to expire, and if I’m reelected, it’s going to stay expired,” he said.
The president’s speech at the conference follows a three-day tour of Pennsylvania, during which he presented himself as “the most pro-union president” and shared his plans to impose higher taxes on higher-income earners, including a 25 percent federal income tax on billionaires.
