Before he was president, Joe Biden served as vice president in Barack Obama’s administration from 2009 to 2017.
Adults can do the math: 17, minus 9, equals 8 years as vice president.
According to Biden’s latest gaffe, he served as vice president for 36 years.
“Every day. I commuted every single day for 36 years as president… Vice President of the United States…” Biden told a crowd during a speech in Scranton, Pennsylvania on Wednesday.
President Biden on riding Amtrak:
"I commuted every single day for 36 years as Vice President of the United States…" pic.twitter.com/M17Iy5H6sd
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 20, 2021
Despite a plummet in polls, Biden has been on a whirlwind tour recently in an effort to sell voters a reconciliation package, now valued at around $2 trillion.
Facing a deadline of Oct. 30, The White House and Democrats are desperately reworking major aspects of Biden’s domestic policy plan, rethinking new taxes intended to pay for a massive package.
“We have a goal. We have a timetable. We have milestones, and we’ve met them all,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
She predicted on Thursday, “It will pass soon.”
Talks between the White House and Democratic leaders are trying to reduce what had been a $3.5 trillion package to about $2 trillion, in what would be an unprecedented federal effort to expand the overall size of the government.
With stark Republican opposition and no Democratic votes to spare, Biden must keep all lawmakers in his party — centrists and progressives — aligned.
Biden faces resistance from key holdouts, in particular Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., who has not been on board with her party’s plan to undo President Donald Trump’s tax breaks.
The newly proposed tax provisions, though, are likely to sour progressives and even some moderate Democrats who have long campaigned on scrapping the Republican-backed 2017 tax cuts. Many are furious that perhaps a lone senator could stymie that goal.
Democrats are also growing anxious they have spent much of the year fighting over the package and have had difficulty explaining what’s in it, made up of so many expensive pieces.
The president especially wants to advance it by the time he departs next week for a global climate summit in Scotland.
Biden is traveling to Baltimore, Maryland on Thursday night for a CNN town hall at 8:00 p.m.
The Associated Press contributed to this article