Biden touts jobs for union workers

TOLEDO — Democratic presidential candidate Joseph Biden Jr. on Monday sought to wrest away from Donald Trump unionized, noncollege-educated voters who supported the Republican in 2016. "My dad was an automobile man," Biden said to United Auto Workers members in Toledo. The former vice president employed his trademark empathy as he compared auto industry hard times from his childhood to more recent times. Biden promised to "reward work, not wealth," by raising taxes on corporations and the "super-wealthy" and by adding higher paying unionized jobs. "Look, I view this campaign as between Scranton (Pennsylvania, Biden's early childhood hometown) and Park Avenue. Between Toledo and Park Avenue," Biden said. "All Trump can see from Park Avenue is Wall Street. That's why his only metric for American prosperity, that he values, is the Dow Jones" stock index. "Like a lot of you, I spent a lot of my time with guys like Trump looking down on me, the Irish Catholic kid in the neighborhood. Guys who thought they were better than me because they had a lot of money," he said. "Guys who inherited everything they ever got, and still managed to squander it." "I don't measure people based on the size of their bank account. I don't respect people based on whether they own a mansion. I don't judge them based on whether they belong to a country club," Biden said. "You and I measure people by the strength of their character, their honesty, their courage." "It's all about family, decency, honor, opportunity. These are values I learned growing up in Scranton, and my guess is, you learned growing up in Toledo or wherever you grew up," he said. "The people I grew up with in Scranton didn't have any money in stocks. In our house growing up, every penny my dad made went to paying the bills, keeping the lights on, food on the table." "I see hard-working women and men who are just trying to earn an honest living and take care of their families," he said. "They're not asking for anything. They're just asking for a fair shot." Biden said his economic plan would create 18.6 million jobs over the next four years through a variety of measures: • Tens of millions of middle-class households would get a tax cut. The Trump tax cuts for corporations and the "super-wealthy" would be undone, he said. • One million "good-paying union jobs" in manufacturing and building new products and technology would be added, he said. • The $600 billion in federal contracts awarded each year for ships, planes and cars would only go to companies that make the products in America, he said. • Investments will be made in construction of bridges, roads, ports and 1.5 million new affordable housing units, he said. Biden said high-speed broadband will be in every home. • The U.S. government's fleet of vehicles would be converted to electric power. Those vehicles would need new parts, which would be made by unionized workers, Biden said. He said his administration would help "retool factories struggling to compete." Consumers would be offered rebates to switch to electric-powered vehicles, he said. To help motorists using electric-powered vehicles, a network of 500,000 charging stations would be built across country. • A program would rebuild "crumbling schools" and help weatherize homes. "And it's all going to be done by certified union labor," he said. "We're going to end Trump's new incentive for sending jobs abroad. That's what he's done. More jobs are going abroad now. Any company that offshores a job is going to pay a 10% penalty," Biden said. Companies that bring back jobs to the United States or reopen a closed factory will get a 10% credit for their investment, he added. Biden cited his role in the Obama administration's auto industry rescue in 2009. "Barack and I bet on you and it paid off," Biden said. "It was over the many objections of many that we stepped in and rescued the automobile industry." One million jobs were saved, Biden said. He also said the rescue package supported 1 in 8 Ohioans. "And then what happened when Donald Trump came into office? Remember when Trump said in 2017 in Lordstown (Ohio, where a General Motors factory was located), 'Don't move … don't sell your house,'" Biden said. "Well, Lordstown shut down on Trump's watch." "He passed a tax bill for the super-wealthy and corporations that actually created incentives for companies to move jobs overseas," Biden said. "We were in a manufacturing recession even before the COVID virus hit. We're down 647,000 manufacturing jobs nationwide since the crisis started." "There's still 10,900 lost auto manufacturing jobs in Ohio that have not come back," he said. Biden said Trump will be the first president since Herbert Hoover to leave office with fewer jobs than when he came to office. "Donald Trump's only plan is more tax cuts for the wealthy. Most of you — if you still have a job — paid more than he paid last year in taxes: $750," Biden said. "Come on, the system's rigged. We've got to change it."