Biden fires back at Boehner

Mark Murray At an event promoting the economic stimulus this morning, Vice President Biden fired back at House Minority Leader John Boehner's speech today.

Mr. Boehner, after months of promising a look at his party's agenda for his plans for America -- their economic agenda -- he made what was billed this morning as a major economic address. And his chief proposal, when you look at it, was apparently that the president should fire his economic team. Very constructive advice, and we thank the leader for that. (Laughter.)

But let's take a look at the rest of his advice... Let's review a little bit of history here. For eight years before we arrived in the West Wing, Mr. Boehner and his party ran the economy, and the middle class literally into the ground. They took a $237 billion operating surplus, inherited from the Clinton administration, and left us with a $1.3 trillion deficit -- and in the process quadrupled the national debt, all before we literally turned on the lights in the West Wing, before we did one single solitary thing. They gave free rein to the special interests to write their own rules at the expense of everybody else, not just the middle class. And the sum total was the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression -- a crisis that wreaked havoc upon American families and businesses all across this country, a crisis from which we are still digging out.