Here comes the spin. 
The new Democratic Vice Presidential Pick is being framed as a champion of the middle class.
A regular guy, a blue collar hero, our savior.
Well, let’s look at the record shall we?
Joe Biden championed something alright, the Bankruptcy Bill. Harvard Professor and Consumer Credit Expert Elizabeth Warren describes the the bill:
On April 20, 2005, George W. Bush signed into law a bankruptcy bill that had been pending in Congress for eight years. The bill was written by credit-industry lobbyists, shopped to their friends in Congress, and supported by tens of millions of dollars in lobbying and campaign contributions.
It might be dismissed as just one more piece of highly focused special-interest legislation except for the damaging vision of middle-class America that it reinforced: irresponsible people consumed by appetites for goods they don’t need, who think little of cost, and who would rather file for bankruptcy than repay their lawful debts. More than just a giveaway to the credit-card companies, the bill was a moral judgment against the bankrupt.
Delaware, Biden’s State, is home to thousands of credit card companies. Could the phrase be champion of working people as long as no lobbyists or corporations object? Senator Feingold proclaimed the bankruptcy bill as the utlimate example of why Congress needs to get lobbyists and corporate money out of Washington.
How does Biden stack up in putting US workers and professionals first? Biden, while in India said:
I’ve always promoted the increase in the numbers of H-1B visas
and also implies trading American jobs for some closer relationship is perfectly acceptable. These guest worker Visas are a major tech labor issue. It’s very well documented US professionals are being displaced by foreign guest workers. India demands these Visas constantly for they are critical to their offshore outsourcing operations. In other words, it’s a double whammy of outsourcing US jobs as well as insourcing.
From the Iowa NPR debates, Biden said:
What would you do as president: Expand H1-B visas or scale them back?
A: I have been working with this for a long time, as former chairman of the Judiciary Committee. That’s where it comes out of. We have it about right now, except that the employers aren’t doing their part. They’ve got to offer the job. If there’s an American there who will take the job, they can’t undercut it by hiring an Indian engineer who will work for less; that’s illegal. We’re not enforcing it.
No, this is completely false. It is perfectly legal to hire a guest worker, displace an American and pay that guest worker less. The law is literally written that way.
It’s so bad, supposedly Biden wanted the Republicans to lose on increasing H-1B guest worker Visas simply so Democrats could get the corporate lobbyist money and do the job themselves.
Biden also co-sponsored a bill to increase H-2B guest worker Visas. Does anyone believe the United States does not have enough unskilled labor?
More quotes on guest worker Visas
Let’s face it folks, the only way the middle class, working professionals are going to get any representation is to demand representation. Corporations are running this show.
Working Life, a Labor focused blog has a different take but also mention the H-1B Visa votes as being anti-labor. The Huffington Post has a take as well.
Just to show the pocket corruption in the Senate, one Senator pushing strong for US workers and H-1B reforms is Chuck Grassley, the same Senator who sponsored the bankruptcy bill. One one issue they are not corrupt, on another, it’s all hail the mightly lobbyists.
Biden is even worse than I thought. Thanks for the information.
As I recall, it was Biden, at the end of the Iowa debate who essentially veered off into deliberate obfuscation and misrepresentation on the H-1b issue. The comments weren’t all captured in official accounts of the debate but I believe they are on the NPR site and both Norm Matloff and Rob Sanchez discussed it in their e-newsletters.
So, I think there’s good reason to believe that like so many other politicians, Biden is well aware of how H-1b is used to replace American workers but DOES NOT CARE because he wants campaign contributions and in-kind support from 1) business lobbies and the organized groups of people in the U.S. who financially and socially benefit from taking the jobs of Americans.
They don’t care. I have to agree with you. It’s all about large voting block and campaign cash (plus you’re other added perks, amazing how Congress members get rich while working in Congress isn’t it?
It seems the Democratic Leadership (and Republican leadership) is hell bent on selling out working Professionals.
I believe Leadership in Congress is selected in part because of their fund raising skills.
There are some good round ups on Biden’s positions on bad trade deals. Seems he is much stronger than Obama on this. That’s good. Now if only they would stop using US workers and their careers as a bartering tool.
looks like neither will be any good for this country. Obama may make some small change. McCain will not change anything at all. Get ready for the next Depression for America. I think that is what is going to take to turn this country around. Then people in America will demand change. It won’t happen without major amount of people demanding change.