Biden On Trump In Iowa: “Easy To Be A Bully” When Others Getting Hit

Around 75 people showed up at Sunset Ridge Farm this afternoon to hear Vice President Joe Biden speak earlier today. Biden framed the 2020 race as “the most important election any of you have ever voted in, regardless of how old, or young, you are.”

Biden hit many of his frequent talking points, including the divisiveness of Donald Trump and his rhetoric, increasing racial tension under Trump’s leadership, the energized resurgence of white supremacy, the cost and importance of education, teacher pay and gun violence.

“We can overcome four years of Donald Trump, it will be difficult, but if we give him eight, we’re in trouble,” Biden said.

Plan for Rural America

The Vice President took some time to talk about his vision for rural America, stating that we should be increasing loans and USDA funding, fostering the development of regional food, increasing agricultural research, promoting clean energy research with ethanol and working with farmers to become the first nation with net-zero emission farming.

“We have the scientific capacity to do these things, but we’re not doing anything,” Biden explained.

He also called out Trump for putting people’s livelihoods in danger with his approach to the trade war with China and the ongoing discussion over ethanol waivers.

“It’s easy to be a bully when you’re not on the receiving end, when you’re not the one dealing with the pain,” Biden said. “How many farmers across this state and nation have had to face the prospect of losing everything, losing their farm, because of these tariffs?”

Biden said after the event that there is a place for tariffs in negotiations, but that Trump is going about the trade war wrong and, “picking the wrong fight with China.”

“This is about dealing with what the problem is,” Biden explained. “The problem hasn’t been a trade deficit with China, it’s been a failure for us to compete with China in the way that we should, by maintaining our advantage we have around the world in terms of intellectual property capacity to invent, change and move new products.”

Biden’s full rural plan is available online, and he said its aim is to bring middle-class, rural Americans back into the fold by revitalizing rural economies and building on the Affordable Care Act to improve access to quality health care in rural areas.

The plan also includes a point to invest $20 billion in rural broadband infrastructure, as well as tripling the funding to expand broadband access.

Improving Health Care by Improving the ACA

Biden talked about his family’s health struggles, including his son, “what would have happened if a health insurance company could have come in, before the Affordable Care Act, and said ‘you’ve used up your coverage?’” Biden asked, talking about the high cost of dealing with his son’s cancer.

Vice President Biden has established himself as the ACA-improvement candidate, frequently noting how big of a step the legislation was, and that it should be built upon rather than scrapped. On Tuesday, he talked about increasing meaningful access to ACA coverage, including developing a public option, relating the issue of health care to quality of life in America.

“How in God’s name can you maintain your dignity if you can’t provide health care for your family?” Biden asked, also mentioning Gov. Kim Reynolds and her administration’s continued efforts to privatize care and remove elements of health coverage protections in Iowa.

“What is broken is the politics, not the system,” Biden said, talking about the division between the two major parties and the tendency to block or undo one another’s work.

by Josh Cook
Posted 8/20/19