In an op-ed in the via The Des Moines Register Vice-President Joe Biden responds to Mitt Romney’s attacks on the President and his administration:
Mitt Romney recently laid out his plan for America. Reading about it, I thought of my dad. My dad was a hard worker. He took pride in what he did. And, like millions of Americans, that pride was put to the test when he found himself struggling to make ends meet.
When I was a child, he had to ask my grandfather to take care of my mom, my brother, sister and I while he moved away to find a better job in Wilmington, Del. My dad had a saying: “A job is about more than a paycheck. It’s about dignity. It’s about respect.”
He never believed he was owed anything, but he did believe if you worked hard and played by the rules, you were entitled to be treated with dignity and respect and a fair shake.Today millions of Americans are meeting their responsibilities every day, yet falling behind. They are not looking for handouts or bailouts, but rather an economy in which their hard work is rewarded and the prospects for their children will be brighter than their own.
This is the basic compact that has made America great. These are the basic values that have helped make our workers the most productive, our entrepreneurs the most innovative and our economy the envy of the world. These are the principles on which our vision for the future must be built.
Romney appears satisfied to settle for an economy in which fewer people succeed, while the majority of Americans are left to tread water or fall behind. His proposal would actually double down on the policies that caused the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression and accelerated a decades-long assault on the middle class.
Romney also misleadingly suggests that the president and I are creating an “Entitlement Society,” whereby government provides everything for its people without regard to merit, as opposed to what he calls an “Opportunity Society,” where everything is merit-based and every man is left to fend for himself.
The only entitlement we believe in is an America where if you work hard, you can get ahead.
Read the rest of the article via Vice President: This is what a real opportunity society looks like | The Des Moines Register | DesMoinesRegister.com.