WASHINGTON _ Vice President Joe Biden accused congressional Republicans on Thursday of undercutting a "basic bargain" that American workers should benefit from helping swell their employers' profits.
An often agitated and animated Biden charged GOP lawmakers with betraying their own long-held positions on overtime pay, the need for minimum wage hikes and worker safety issues. He urged the audience at the left-leaning Center for American Progress think tank to help Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton defeat GOP foe Donald Trump, saying her defeat would leave America "in trouble."
Biden chastised Republicans for claiming to belong to the party of economic growth, saying the lawmakers "don't get it" as he talked about middle class workers.
"This is not your father's Republican Party," he said. "It's a different party than even 20 years ago."
The remarks could have passed for a campaign stump speech in the Rust Belt and Deep South had Biden opted to seek the Democratic nomination. Instead, he was there mostly to fire up the think tank's staff and like-minded Democrats.
Republicans have "rejected" the notion that middle class individuals want to work, the vice president said while criticizing GOP members for opposing a federal bailout of the American auto industry. He also panned the GOP for opposing a 2009 economic recovery law, arguing the federal government had a responsibility to help turn around a flailing economy.
"Republicans talked about stimulus like it was a dirty word," Biden said of the administration's efforts early on to revive the U.S. economy amid a global crisis.
And he admitted, Republicans "succeeded at the front end."
On the auto and economic bailouts, as well as the Obama administration's support of middle class and small business tax cuts, Biden admitted a mistake. He said the Obama administration initially failed to "advertise what we did." Senior administration officials rarely admit mistakes in public.
Biden has long positioned himself as a middle class kid who made it big in Washington. He kept that up on Thursday, noting many in the capital city long have referred to him as "Middle Class Joe."
"I know that's not meant as a compliment," the former Delaware senator said. "It means you're not sophisticated. But I know the middle class."
