The Riverside Press-Enterprise
Biden visits hometown to call for more taxes on rich
>> President Joe Biden on Tuesday made a nostalgic return to the house where he grew up in working-class Scranton, kicking off a multiday swing through Pennsylvania where he called for higher taxes on the rich and tried to cast Donald Trump as an out-oftouch elitist — part of an attempt to blunt the populist appeal of his predecessor’s comeback bid.
Biden appeared to savor his trip down memory lane, lingering longer than expected at his childhood home. An American flag waved softly in the wind on the front porch as neighbors crowded the nearby sidewalk under flowering trees and a pale blue sky. The president later posed for photos with children, some wearing school uniforms, in the backyard.
Biden is looking to gain ground in a key swing state while his opponent spends much of the week in a New York City courtroom for his first criminal trial. A city of roughly 75,000, the president used Scranton to argue that getting rich in America is fine, but should come with heftier tax bills. He dismissed Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee and a billionaire, as a tool of wealthy interests.
It’s all aimed at reframing the conversation around the economy, which has left many Americans feeling sour about their financial situations at a time of stubborn inflation and elevated interest rates despite low unemployment.
“When I look at the economy, I don’t look at it through the eyes of Mar-alago.
“I look at it through the eyes of Scranton,” the president
said in a speech before visiting his family former house. He was contrasting his modest upbringing with the Florida estate where the former president now lives.
Biden has proposed a 25% percent minimum tax rate for billionaires. He added that taxes are “how we invest in the country.”
“Scranton values or Mara-lago values,” Biden said. “These are the competing visions for our economy that raise questions of fundamental fairness at the heart of this campaign.” He spoke at a community center from a stage flanked by a banner reading “Tax Fairness for All Americans.”
The president said decades of GOP policies that cut taxes for the wealthy with the idea of stimulating the economy “failed America, and Donald Trump embodies that failure.” He detailed his own working class upbringing while scoffing that Trump’s background taught him little more than “the best way to get rich is to inherit it.” Along the way, Biden worked in jokes about the sharp fall in market value
of the former president’s social media platform.
Biden was also taking part in a training session for grassroots organizers at a union hall.
Crowds lined the streets to mostly cheer, though there were protests against the Biden’s administration’s support for Israel in its war with Gaza.
“Joe Biden has never forgotten where he’s from,” Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti said before Biden’s speech. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro echoed the idea.
“They’re the people on his mind, and they’re the people in his heart,” Shapiro said, adding that Biden administration polices are “putting money back in your pocket every day.”
After spending the night in Scranton, Biden was continuing to Pittsburgh on Wednesday, then goes back to the White House, only to hit Philadelphia on Thursday.
“It’s hard to draw paths to Biden winning the White House that don’t involve Pennsylvania,” said Daniel Hopkins, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania.