Republicans Jump on Biden Middle Class Comments

Vice President Joe Biden told a campaign rally in North Carolina on Tuesday that the middle class has been buried for the past four years – just about as long as President Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House.

But Republicans immediately seized on what they termed a “stunning admission” by Biden as evidence that Obama’s policies have been bad for the economy. The move came a day before Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, meet in their first presidential debate in Denver.

“This is deadly earnest,” Biden told a group of slightly more than 1,000 in Charlotte, N.C., according to Politico. “How they can justify … raising taxes on the middle class that has been buried the last four years? How in the Lord’s name can they justify raising their taxes and these tax cuts?” he asked.

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Romney said via Twitter that he agreed with Biden. "The middle class has been buried the last 4 years, which is why we need a change in November," he said.

And GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, whom Biden will debate Oct. 11 in Kentucky, concurred.

"That means we need to stop digging by electing Mitt Romney the next president of the United States,” Ryan said at a campaign stop in Davenport, Iowa, The Hill reports. “Of course, the middle class is being buried ... they're being buried by the Obama administration's economic failures.

"I got to tell you, help is on the way, we can turn this around," Ryan said.

Romney spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg said soon after Biden spoke:

“Vice President Biden made a stunning admission today, and we couldn’t agree more: the middle class has been ‘buried’ under the last four years of this president’s policies."

An Obama campaign official, however, defended Biden's comments, saying that he was referring to the effects of the Bush administration's economic policies.

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“As the vice president has been saying all year and again in his remarks today, the middle class was punished by the failed Bush policies that crashed our economy -- and a vote for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan is a return to those failed policies," the official said, Politico reports. "With more than five million private-sector jobs created since 2010, the vice president and President Obama will continue to help the middle class recover and move the nation forward.”

Information from Reuters was used in this report.