WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden yesterday doubled down on his claim that the president’s jobs bill would stop rapes and murders.
“That is a fact,” Biden insisted on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “If [cities] don’t get help, crime is going to continue to go up.”
Republicans have blasted Biden for using scare tactics to promote President Obama’s $447 billion jobs bill.
Biden noted that the economic crunch had forced local governments to eliminate about 15,000 police jobs in the last 18 months.
“Do they think the federal government has no obligation?” Biden asked.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) turned the focus to the bill’s burden on small businesses.
“The question is whether the federal government ought to be raising taxes on 300,000 small businesses in order to send money down to bail out states for whom firefighters and police work,” he said.