TOLEDO, Ohio — As with most campaign rallies, Vice President Joe Biden's speech in Toledo on Monday afternoon mixed in some exaggeration with truth.
People in Toledo care about the economy and job creation and one of Biden's big claims was that his economic plan will create many more jobs than President Trump's.
What he was referring to was a Moody's Analytic's report, which says that Biden's plan could create 18.6 million jobs, compared to the President's 11.2 million.
What he did not mention was that those numbers assume that Democrats control both houses of Congress during his presidency. If power is shared, the numbers are barely in Biden's favor.
The report says that Biden will create jobs by raising taxes on those making more than $400,000 and by raising the corporate income tax rate from 21% to 28%. This would create trillions in revenue, which Biden plans to invest in infrastructure, education, and other areas that would create job growth.
However, analysts believe that this plan would swell the federal deficit, which normally isn't a big deal with interest rates so low. But we certainly aren't in normal times. The plan would also likely eat into corporate profits, which is never a good thing for those in the stock market.
Biden also took a shot at President Trump's jobs record, saying that he would leave office as the first president since Herbert Hoover to lose jobs in office.
This is, obviously, a little unfair. President Trump had created nearly 7 million jobs by the end of 2019. In the early spring, the pandemic wiped out 22 million jobs, and only about half those jobs have returned.
But, yes, despite his claims, President Trump's economy has lost jobs.
WATCH FULL JOE BIDEN TOLEDO OHIO SPEECH:
Mr. Biden returned to a well-used scare tactic that President Trump's plan would result in Social Security going bankrupt. What he was referring to was a report by a Social Security actuary to Congress that indicated that Social Security would be depleted by the middle of 2023 if Trump gets his way and the payroll tax is eliminated.
The elimination of the tax would be devastating, but Trump has tried to defer the tax for months, and many companies have refused to abide by his request. It's highly unlikely that Congress would also agree to it. And it also assumes that the President and Congress would not offer another source of revenue for the system to keep it solvent.
And the most popular sound bite for the union crowd was that President Obama and Biden saved the automobile industry. They certainly played a role, but Biden overlooks the fact that Republican President George W. Bush authorized $25 billion in loans for General Motors and Chrysler in late 2008.
Biden, however, was put in charge of the 2009 Recovery Act, which did play a large part in helping the industry get reorganized and on its feet again. But some analysts also wonder whether the industry even needed government intervention.
For the most part, Biden gave a fairly truthful speech, although some of his claims need to be put in proper context.
And if there is one thing that 2020 should have taught us, it is that plans and promises look good on paper. But reality does not play out on paper.