Biden retools 'buried' remark

Vice President Biden seemed to retool his stump speech after a remark earlier in the day sparked strong criticism from Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.

Campaigning in North Carolina on Tuesday, Biden, while accusing Republicans of wanting to raise taxes on the middle class, said that the middle class had been "buried" over the last four years.

At another campaign stop at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, Biden modified his speech, instead said the middle class had been "buried" under policies Romney and Ryan had been pushing.

"The middle class was buried by the policies that Romney and Ryan supported," Biden said in the second North Carolina speech.

Biden then quoted former President Clinton, saying what the 2012 Republican presidential ticket is "pushing" is former President George W. Bush's "policies on steroids." 

The initial comment sparked strong criticism from Romney's campaign, with vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan saying at a campaign event a few hours after Biden's remark that Republicans "agree" that the middle class had been buried the last four years — under Obama's policies.

The remarks in the second speech are still fairly similar to the ones Biden made earlier in the day. In that speech, Biden said that Democratic claims that Romney and Ryan wanted to raise taxes on the middle class "is deadly earnest."

"How they can justify, how they can justify raising taxes on the middle class that has been buried the last four years — how in Lord's name can they justify raising their taxes with these tax cuts," Biden said in the earlier speech.

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