Palin and Biden turn up the heat
In Colorado, she hit at tax hikes. In Michigan, he blasted policies favoring the rich.
GOLDEN, Colo. - The two vice presidential candidates went on the attack yesterday, with Republican Sarah Palin saying the Democrats would raise taxes and with Democrat Joseph R. Biden Jr. saying the Republican ticket was using divisive tactics.
Campaigning in Colorado, Palin said she would concentrate on energy, government reform, and helping families with special-needs children if Republicans win the White House this fall. She drew cheers when she said, "Too often government is the problem" rather than the solution.
Campaigning on her own, the Alaska governor also said Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama "wants to raise income taxes and raise payroll taxes and raise investment income taxes and raise business taxes and raise the death tax.
"But John McCain and I know that's not the way you grow the economy," she said.
Independent groups such as the Tax Policy Center have concluded that four out of five U.S. households would receive tax cuts under Obama's proposal, which include higher income and payroll taxes only for the wealthiest wage-earners, those making more than $250,000.
During a campaign stop in Michigan, Biden accused McCain of adopting what he called the serve-the-rich policies of President Bush and the divisive tactics of former Bush strategist Karl Rove.
Speaking to hundreds of people in a sweltering high school gym in St. Clair Shores, a Detroit suburb, Biden decried what he said was "a culture in Washington where the very few wealthy and powerful have a seat at the table and the rest of us are on the menu."
Appearing before an enthusiastic crowd in swing-state Colorado, Palin struck populist themes. The speech was the first time Palin has indicated what role McCain might give her in his administration.
Palin's trip is her first outside her home state without McCain, and the schedule was light, with only a speech in Colorado and a fund-raiser in Ohio.
The governor has given only one substantive media interview since joining the ticket, and she and her husband, Todd, ignored reporters' shouted questions throughout the day.
Her second interview is scheduled for today, with Fox News' Sean Hannity.
