Joseph R. Biden Jr. Quotes

Devolutionary reform will not provide a factory, a machine or jobs, build a school, train a doctor or put a pound on pensions.

The global economy should not be supported by wage earners. They have to be able to build a future like any other human being.

It is time we had democratic socialism for working families, not just Wall Street billionaires.

I recommended to the president [George Bush] that our focus had to be on al-Qaida, the Taliban and Afghanistan. Those were the ones who attacked the United States of America on 9/11.

When George W.Bush attacked Afghanistan, it was widely hailed, and the failure of our war there wasn't understood. Within a few months of attacking Afghanistan, Bush clearly moved on to get ready for Iraq, long before Osama bin Laden or Al Qaeda were dispensed with. There was never any serious debate in the press about whether even the notion that every Taliban was our enemy was valid. A lot of assumptions about that war were never challenged.

So I'm not proposing anything radical. I just believe that anybody making over $250,000 a year should go back to the income tax rates we were paying under Bill Clinton. Back when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest budget surplus in history, and plenty of millionaires to boot. ... At the same time, most people agree that we should not raise taxes on middle-class families or small businesses -- not when so many folks are just trying to get by.

I think the thing about capitalism is it's an evil necessity, capitalism. Communism has been tried and failed, and socialism, that doesn't work very well. Capitalism works, but the problem about capitalism is it does mean that a few individuals become very wealthy. Therefore, I think those individuals have enormous responsibility to redistribute that wealth either by creating new businesses or creating new jobs and making sure that money just doesn't lie in a bank account for future generations.

It is a campaign to break down every barrier that holds you back. We need more than a plan for the big banks. The middle class needs a raise. And we need more jobs.

We need to stay in Iraq until the job is done. The President understands this and I'm glad that he is getting more countries to participate. We must change the chant of millions of young Muslims from 'Jihad Against the World' to 'Freedom and Democracy.'

Our mission is to go after Al Qaeda, not the Taliban. Right now, they are in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. We should go after them wherever they are.

What the Democrats have to understand is that while we do need to reform our regulation and we do need more restrictions, it is true that it is capitalism and free enterprise and companies that create jobs and wealth for every American.

In my view, we need a massive federal jobs program which puts millions of our people back to work. We must end our disastrous trade policies. We need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. And we have to fight for pay equity for women.

Swapping Bergdahl for illegal enemy combatants (terrorists, in common parlance) signaled unmistakably to Taliban and al Qaeda that Obama is determined to withdraw from Afghanistan no matter what the cost to the United States or those in Afghanistan fighting to remain free.

The White House was signaling that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was of such urgency that it had priority over the crushing of al Qaeda.

What I'm hoping for is something that goes much, much further than the conservative enablers of dog-eat-dog capitalism putting on a puppet show of cleaning house. But that's probably not going to happen just yet.

For years, the Democrats have controlled the inner cities; some up to 100 years; some over 100 years; unbroken. I say to the African American community and to the Hispanic community: What the hell do you have to lose? I will fix it. We will make them good. We'll make them safe. We'll bring back jobs. We'll create good, good schools and education.

Those of us who believe in free markets and those of us who believe that in fact the whole goal of investment is entrepreneurship and job creation, we find it pretty hard to justify rich people figuring out clever legal ways to loot a company, leaving behind 1,700 families without a job.

I think the stress on income inequality is something that every American should take seriously, we have got to figure out how we're going to provide more economic opportunity - good jobs with rising incomes - and I'm excited to work with Senator Sanders in doing that.

As long as there's anybody that's poor or middle class, there will not be satisfaction that there are rich people. Not 'til we get rid of all the rich can we say we have finished the job.

The poverty we see in America is now too widespread, and too complex, for easy fixes. But I do think we can reimagine many of our institutions and can create new ones in ways that would be effective. We could, for example, create social insurance systems, similar to social security, such as that we went through in 2008-9. We could create a financial transaction tax, oil profit taxes and a fairer estate tax system, and we could plow much of the revenue raised from these into job training programs, into better education infrastructure, into an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit.

Secretary Clinton is talking about taking out ISIS. "We will take out ISIS." Well, President Obama and Secretary Clinton created a vacuum the way they got out of Iraq, because they got out - what, they shouldn't have been in, but once they got in, the way they got out was a disaster. And ISIS was formed.

I believe that the abolition of private ownership of land and capital is a necessary step toward any world in which the nations are to live at peace with one another.

If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send them. But our commanders tell me they have the number of troops they need to do their job. Sending more Americans would undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead in this fight. And sending more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever, when we are, in fact, working for the day when Iraq can defend itself and we can leave.

Essentially what my campaign is about, it's about anything, this is saying we've got bring that money back into the middle class and working families. We have to create jobs, we have to raise, we have to make public colleges and universities tuition free so kids in that community who are studying hard understand that some day they will be able to go to college.

The best social reform program in the world is a job.