President Biden has recently made headlines for making dubious claims and gaffes in his recent public appearances. At a campaign event in Tampa, Florida, on Tuesday, President Biden claimed that he “used to drive an 18-wheeler.”
Biden has made this claim several times before and has been extensively fact-checked. Politifact succinctly stated, “No, Joe Biden wasn’t a tractor-trailer driver.” The website added, “As a senator, Joe Biden rode along on a truck drive from Delaware to Ohio. He had a summer job as a bus driver while in law school. While he has made this claim before, there is no evidence he was ever a truck driver.”
When Joe Biden visited Dakota Technical College in Minnesota in 2021 to promote his $1.2 trillion infrastructure package, he suggested he had experience driving “big trucks.” He told several people at the event, “I used to drive a tractor-trailer, so I know a little bit about driving big trucks.” Biden added, “I only did it for part of a summer, but I got my license anyway.”
Given the context in which Biden has made these claims, events where he appears to be speaking to individuals involved in the trucking industry, it would make sense for Biden to want to come across as relatable. However, his claims are not true.
Biden spent a decent portion of the speech addressing the economy, which has proven to be a significant pain point for many Americans amid inflation and high interest rates. However, the president blamed the economic predicament on “trickle-down economics” and billionaire tax breaks.
“And, by the way, when I ran this time, I made it real clear what I was going to do. I said I was going to change the way our economy works, instead of trickle-down economics where they go — where the very wealthy get all the tax breaks and all that will trickle down and grow the economy. I’m a capitalist. I don’t care if you — if you make a billion bucks. Just pay your taxes,” he said.
Biden then made a claim that he consistently touts: that billionaires only pay a tax rate of 8.3 percent. He said, “No, I — I really mean it. You know what the average tax rate for someone making — there’s — we have a thousand billionaires in America. You know what their average tax rate is? 8.3 percent. It’s not a joke. 8.3 percent. Anybody want to trade with their tax rate?”
Verify.com also fact-checked this assertion, concluding that the statement was false. “Billionaires do not pay an average of 8.2% in federal taxes. The 400 wealthiest American taxpayers actually pay an average federal income tax rate of around 23%,” the website said.
Verify.com added that the calculation Biden is citing actually features “unrealized gains” from unsold assets as a component of the 8 percent figure. “When Biden mentions the billionaire tax rate, he’s referring to a White House estimate of taxes paid by the top 400 wealthiest American families that includes the increase in value of unsold stocks, or “unrealized” gains, in a person’s total income,” the fact checker continued.
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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