Vice President Joe Biden readjusted a stump speech one-liner on Tuesday after Team Romney quickly pounced on his "buried" middle class comment.
Biden quickly changed course at campaign event in Asheville, North Carolina, declaring "The middle class was buried by the policies that Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney supported."
Earlier in the day, it came out in a slightly different way. Biden questioned how Republicans "can justify raising taxes on the middle class that has been buried the last four years." This prompted the Romney campaign to argue this comes at the fault of Obama's leadership.
Republicans seized on this gaffe all afternoon, calling it "a stunning admission" on Obama’s economic policies.
Mitt Romney tweeted that "agree[s] with @JoeBiden, the middle class has been buried the last 4 years, which is why we need a change in November." (Debate zinger practice hard at work?)
"Of course the middle class has been buried," said VP candidate Paul Ryan. "They are being buried by regulations, they are being buried by taxes…they are being buried by borrowing, they are being buried by the Obama Administration’s economic failures. You see the Obama economic agenda failed not because it was stopped, it failed because it was passed."
In a statement, the Obama campaign said Biden was merely discussing how “the middle class was punished by the failed Bush policies that crashed our economy” and voting for the Romney-Ryan ticket would lead to a repeat situation.
