Washington (AFP) - Proudly publicizing his own tax payments, then heading to an event at a trade union facility, President Joe Biden is embracing middle class America in a titanic battle with Republicans over the soul of the US economy.
His trip Wednesday to a union training facility in Accokeek, Maryland, puts the 80-year-old Democrat in his political sweet spot as he gears up for an expected re-election bid next year -- and a massive arm wrestle with Republicans in the next few weeks over extending the US government debt limit.
That fight over whether to allow more government borrowing -- something that has become an accepted annual ritual over the years -- will have real world economic consequences.
If Republican opponents manage to block an extension, the United States could default on its colossal debt obligations for the first time in history, triggering disarray across global markets.
Ahead of that decision, Biden and his Republican opponents are battling to win the political narrative.
Republican House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy laid out his vision on Monday, casting his side as the party of fiscal responsibility.
He said Republicans would vote to extend the debt limit and avoid default -- but only in return for budget cuts.
But in Biden's telling, Republicans are the party of Donald Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement and more interested in serving the rich than responsibility.
The White House said Biden will "deliver remarks contrasting his vision for the economy with MAGA House Republicans' vision: an economy that grows from the middle out and bottom up instead of an economy that trickles from the top down."
In a jab at McCarthy, who chose the New York Stock Exchange as the setting for his debt speech, a White House senior official said that while the speaker visited Wall Street, "President Biden will be joined by hard-working Americans at a union training facility."
Tax day
While the Republicans are also pushing for tax cuts, Biden is betting unabashedly on his message that Americans should pay their taxes -- and be able to expect government services in return.
Tuesday was the national deadline for filing tax returns -- hardly a popular day but one Biden embraced by making public his own tax documents.
This showed that he and his wife Jill Biden earned $579,514 in 2022, mostly combining his presidential salary and her teacher's salary.
And the first couple paid a federal tax rate of 23.8 percent on this, something Biden is likely to remind audiences as he returns to one of his favorite themes -- the need to end loopholes where often the richest Americans pay far lower tax rates than ordinary workers.
The White House official said on Wednesday that Biden would characterize proposed Republican policies as "tax giveaways that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations."
He instead will "outline his plan to cut the deficit by nearly $3 trillion over 10 years by asking the super-wealthy and large corporations to pay their fair share, and cutting wasteful spending on special interests like Big Pharma and Big Oil."
