Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

by Joe Biden

We also had to speak to folks who were doing well. I took a lot of ridicule for saying rich folks were just as patriotic as anyone else. But I meant it. I had no doubt that most wealthy Americans were willing to forgo one more tax break in order to better educate our children, or to rebuild this nation’s infrastructure, or to provide decent health care to everybody who needs it. They know that the opportunity to get richer isn’t the whole deal. Lifting up their country is part of the deal, too. We had to remind corporate America and Wall Street that just taking care of themselves and their shareholders wasn’t good enough. They had a responsibility to their workers, their communities, and their country, too. Not to shame them, not to harangue them, but to remind them that a long history of shared prosperity and a secure and growing middle class is why America has had the most stable political democracy in the world. If we lose that—and we were losing it—no amount of money will hold back the anger and the pitchforks. This wasn’t just about profits and economics. This was about the social stability of this nation.