President Joe Biden paid New Hampshire his first visit in nearly two years Monday, using a brief speech at the Goffstown YMCA to promote his $7.3 trillion proposed federal budget and criticize Republicans as obstructionists.
The signs behind Biden read "Lowering Costs for American Families." The teleprompters in front of him spooled an array of details about his new budget proposal.
"I'm doing everything I can to lower health care costs to provide people with peace of mind — not at the expense of doctors or medicine or hospitals or drug companies but just to make it fair," Biden told the small audience thick with local Democratic elected officials, labor leaders, and longtime New Hampshire supporters.
In his roughly 15-minute speech, Biden said he wants to cap prescription drug costs, reduce the national debt, and hike taxes for large corporations and billionaires.
"And I'm a capitalist, man,” Biden said. “Make all the money you want, just begin to pay your fair share."
Biden's remarks also touched on comments made by Donald Trump earlier in the day about Social Security and Medicare in which the former president suggested he was open to cutting spending on those programs.
“There is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements — in terms of cutting — and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements.” Trump said in a CNBC interview Monday.
“I’m never gonna allow that to happen: I won’t cut Social Security and I won’t cut Medicare,” Biden said in Goffstown.
Trump's campaign later told the Washington Post that he was referring to waste in those programs.
Biden's New Hampshire visit, which also included a stop at a local campaign office where he thanked volunteers, is part of a string of recent appearances in states seen as key for Biden in November's election.
Biden carried New Hampshire in the 2020 election over Trump by seven points. No Republican presidential nominee has won New Hampshire since 2000.
