Biden: Romney a 'Nice Guy' but 'Out of Touch'

Vice President Joe Biden wasted little time before ripping into presidential candidate Mitt Romney's jobs, tax and health care plans on Saturday afternoon.

Inviting Democratic congressional candidate Carol Shea-Porter and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Maggie Hassan to the stage, Biden spoke for about 40 minutes before a crowd of around 500 in the gymnasium at Merrimack Middle School.

Biden candidly called Romney “a nice guy,” but said the GOP candidate is out of touch – criticizing the recent 47 percent remarks made by Romney.

Biden made several examples of the people Romney said consider themselves “dependent” on government, the so-called victims: The soldier in Afghanistan sitting in a bunker, under attack and not paying taxes on his pay check, the 29-year-old man or woman who did two tours of duty who can now go to college due to the help of the G.I. Bill, the young couple that is attempting to place their child in a safe and reputable day care.

“He thinks all these folks feel they're entitled. They've become dependent, see themselves as victims, won't take responsibility for their own lives. Where do they live?” Biden asked. “How can they be so profoundly, I'm serious, so profoundly wrong about the United States of America, the country they live in.”

He blamed the Republicans for the debt crisis that was left in the laps of the administration he and Obama took on.

“Between 2001 and 2009 when we took office, they doubled the national debt, now up to $7 trillion debt they laid on us,” Biden said.

And the budget passed just before he and Obama took office laid another trillion in debt on top of that, Biden said.

“Their proposals during that period of time produced the slowest job growth since World War II … and it gave us the great recession of 2008.”

Under the Romney/Ryan health care plan, Biden said it will immediately deny 48 million people health care they just received under the current administration's health care plan. It would make Medicare insolvent by 2016 and turn Medicare into a voucher system.

He said anyone with a pre-existing condition will not be insured and that the reason to turn it into a voucher system is to cut costs.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let's be clear about something. This is a fundamental difference. President Obama and I will never, never, never, never abandon Medicare and turn it into a voucher system. Period,” Biden said to cheers from the audience.

Biden also took shots at Romney for outsourcing or “off shoring” jobs while he worked for Bain Capital.

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But Biden's whole speech wasn't about why Romney and Ryan are wrong for the country, it was also about what he and Obama will bring to the table in the next four years.

There is the opportunity in the next four years to create around 600,000 jobs just by learning how to responsibly take gas out of the ground here to fuel cars, Biden said.

He spoke about investing in America and keeping jobs in the country and balancing the budget, but doing it without balancing it on the backs of the middle class.

"We have such a different view, such a different value set. We think the way you grow this country is the way you always have … from the middle out,” Biden said.

He called for job creation, for adding 100,000 new math and science teachers in the next 10 years, and for adding manufacturing jobs.

“I've been criticized before for saying it: Where is it written that America can't lead the world in manufacturing? I've been saying that for 14 years,” Biden said.

The Republican party issued a statement following Biden's speech from Jennifer Horn, a former Republican congressional candidate who was in the audience at Biden's Saturday event.

“No matter what the Vice President says, he cannot distract the American people from the president’s record of failure," Horn said. "With 23 million people still unemployed and underemployed, with more people falling into poverty under this president than at any point in my lifetime, it is clear that Barack Obama really cannot change Washington. He has gone from being the 'Yes we can!' president to the 'No I can’t.'

"Gov. Romney can and will make Washington work for the people. With a record of balancing budgets and growing jobs, he offers an optimistic future of empowerment and growth rather than four more years of dependence, falling incomes, and mounting debt.” Jennifer Horn, Co-Chair of Mitt Romney’s National Grassroots Leadership Team.