CHESTERFIELD, Va. — Countering Republican claims that President Obama has failed to resolve partisan gridlock in Washington, Vice President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that Mitt Romney and running mate Paul Ryan think compromise is a “dirty word,” and blamed Ryan for contributing to the budget stalemate in the House.
“They have rejected every effort to reduce the national debt if that effort required even one dollar, one dime in additional revenue coming from people making more than $1 million. That’s a fact,” Biden told about 600 people at a campaign rally. “Ladies and gentlemen, these guys think compromise is somehow a dirty word.”
Biden cited comments by Romney during the Republican primaries when he said that as president he would reject a hypothetical plan to reduce the national debt if it raised taxes, even if the ratio was $10 of spending cuts for every $1 in new tax revenue. He also cited Romney’s choice of Ryan as his running mate as proof he is uninterested in legislative deal-making.
As the chairman of the House Budget Committee, Ryan wrote a conservative-backed budget proposal that called for freezing most domestic spending for five years, repealing President Obama’s economic stimulus law, and lowering the top tax rates for individuals and corporations from the current 35 percent to 25 percent. The House failed to pass a budget after the majority Republicans and the Obama White House failed to agree on a compromise.
Biden also criticized Romney for say8ing in secretly recorded remarks that 47 percent of Americans pay no taxes and so won’t vote for him. “The fact is, these people pay a lot of taxes,” Biden said. “Social Security taxes, Medicare taxes, state and local taxes, gas taxes, property taxes.”
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