After 35 years in the Congress, Joe Biden appears to be continuing his on the job training. Yesterday when asked his opinion of the AIG bailout, Joe Biden said he opposed the bailout, then blamed the companies financial troubles on George Bush’s tax cuts:

We should try to correct the problems that caused this. And what’s caused this? The profligate tax cuts to the very, very wealthy that John wants to continue.

I’ll give you a moment to ponder over that statement……. So Joe Biden believes the millions of foreclosures occurring nationwide are as a direct result of George Bush’s tax cuts? This is taking Bush derangement syndrome to a new level! Working in the financial sector, I have been following the credit crisis very closely and this is the first time I have heard this argument used. The only way Biden’s statement could be considered as a rational one, would be if the tax cuts led to less revenue, which in turn forced the Government to scale back regulatory departments which were in charge of overseeing mortgage lenders. The tax cuts however, led to higher revenues so this clearly is not the case.

Joe Biden is now asking wealthier Americans to express their patriotism, in the form of higher taxes:

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden says that paying higher taxes is the patriotic thing to do for wealthier Americans.

Biden told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Thursday that, in his words, “it’s time to be patriotic … time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut.”

Ed Morrissey expresses my sentiment on this:

Now Biden wants to tell us that paying higher taxes is patriotic. You know what would be patriotic? Congressmen like Barack Obama and Joe Biden attacking government spending, not trying to beef up government revenues (and doing so in the most destructive way, by attacking capital needed for investment). Biden could be patriotic by revealing his pork-barrel record, something he has consistently failed to do. Who gets Biden’s earmarks? Why can’t Biden be patriotic and forego earmarks?

Most Americans look at their tax bite and figure they’re patriotic enough. They’d prefer electing people who start acting responsibly with their money, rather than demand even more from them to prove their patriotism.

The credit crisis, in simplified terms, is as a result of people who borrowed money and were unable to repay the loans. With the American Government being the largest borrower in the world, paying interest of almost half a trillion dollars per year, why are neither of our candidates focusing on the government’s pending credit crisis? I have said repeatedly that if a politician wished to raise taxes, and pledged that any increase in government revenue would be used to pay down the national debt, I would be all for it. Obama and Biden have not even hinted they would reduce the deficit, much less the debt itself.

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Barack Obama, Earmarks, Election 2008, Features, Liberals, Politics, President Bush, Taxes