President Biden rips 'Mar-a-Lago values' on trail in Pennsylvania with Trump in court

WASHINGTON ― With Donald Trump stuck in a New York courtroom, President Joe Biden took his campaign Tuesday to his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he hammered the former president over his tax policies in an appeal to working-class voters.

Biden began a three-day swing through Pennsylvania, the biggest battleground of the 2024 election, blasting Trump's 2017 tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans while calling for the rich to pay their "fair share."

Biden, in a campaign speech, leaned into his modest upbringing in Scranton − "where honesty and decency matter," he said − and compared it to Trump's background of wealth and inheritance.

"People like Donald Trump learned very different lessons," Biden told supporters at the Scranton Cultural Center at the Masonic Temple. "He learned the best way to get rich is inherit it. He learned that paying taxes is something that people who work for a living did, not him. He learned that telling people they're fired was something to laugh about."

The Scranton stop − designed to make an economic case for Biden's reelection while inflation remains stubbornly high − fell one day after Tax Day, the April 15 deadline for people to file their federal tax returns. Biden released his tax returns Monday, while Trump did not, following a practice of not publicizing his returns that Trump maintained in the White House.

"When I look at the economy, I don't see it through the eyes of Mar-a-Lago, I see it through the eyes of Scranton − and that's not hyperbole," Biden said, adding that Trump "and his rich friends" embrace the "failed trickled-down policies" of the past 40 years.

"Scranton values or Mar-a-Lago values: These are the competing visions for our economy that raise fundamental questions of fairness at the heart of this campaign," Biden said.

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The visit came as Trump attended day two of his criminal trial in New York involving alleged hush-money payments he made to a porn star during the 2016 campaign.

Ahead of the November election, Biden is looking to improve Democratic performance with white working-class voters who lack college degrees, who have increasingly moved to the Republican camp in the Trump era.

In his State of the Union address last month, Biden revived a proposal to reverse the corporate tax rate cut that Trump and congressional Republicans passed in 2017 by raising the rate from 21% to 28%. The rate was previously set at 35% prior to the Trump-era cuts.

Biden has proposed increasing a new minimum on the largest billion-dollar corporations − which he signed into law in 2022 − from 15% to 21% and creating a new 25% minimum tax on Americans with more than $100 million in wealth, the 0.01% wealthiest Americans. He has vowed not to raise taxes on any American making more than $400,00 a year.

"No billionaire should be paying a lower tax rate than a teacher, or a nurse or a sanitation worker," Biden said, later taking a jab at the tumbling stock of Truth Social, Trump's social media company. "You know, I have to say: If Trump's stock in Truth Social, his company, drops any lower, he might do better under my tax plan than his."

In a statement, Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Trump "proudly passed the largest tax cuts in history" and accused Biden of backing the largest tax hike in history.

"When President Trump is back in the White House, he will advocate for more tax cuts for all Americans and reinvigorate America's energy industry to bring down inflation, lower the cost of living, and pay down our debt," Leavitt said.

A proposal put forward last month by the House Republican Study Committee would make permanent the Trump-era tax cuts on individuals and businesses, which are set to expire at the end of 2025, along with making other new tax cuts.

Brian Deese, former director of the National Economic Council in the Biden White House, told reporters the Republican plan would add $5 trillion to the deficit and would deliver billionaires a $3.5 million tax cut on average.

"Donald Trump is going to have to stand up in front of the American people and defend why the richest people in the country get a tax cut that is seven times greater than the income of a typical middle class family," Deese said during a Biden campaign call.

Pennsylvania, with its 19 electoral votes, is one of the most fiercely contested battleground states of the election. Biden carried Pennsylvania by just 1.2 percentage points in 2020. Pennsylvania also features a critical Senate race between incumbent Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and expected Republican challenger David McCormick.

Trump held a campaign rally in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania on Saturday. Biden plans to visit the Pittsburgh area on Wednesday and Philadelphia on Thursday in a push to tout an economy recovery that's gone unnoticed for many Americans while inflation remains high.

The trip to Scranton marked the eighth time either Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris have visited Pennsylvania in 2024.

Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: With Trump in court, Biden begins Pennsylvania campaign blitz