Biden calls for higher taxes on the rich on visit to Pennsylvania hometown

US president blasts rival Donald Trump as an out-of-touch elitist on visit to key battleground state.

United States President Joe Biden has renewed calls for higher taxes on the rich and criticised his rival Donald Trump as being out of touch with working-class Americans during a nostalgia-fuelled visit to his hometown.

Kicking off a three-day tour of the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Biden sought to draw a distinction between his working-class roots and Trump’s privileged upbringing and lifestyle at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

“When I look at the economy, I don’t look at it through the eyes of Mar-a-Lago. I look at it through the eyes of Scranton,” Biden said during a visit to a community centre in the city of Scranton.

Biden contrasted his plan for a 25 percent minimum tax rate for billionaires with Trump’s pledge to maintain the corporate tax rate at 21 percent after slashing it from 35 percent.

“A fair tax code is how we invest in the things that make this country strong,” Biden said. “Health care, education, defence and so much more.”

Biden said he had learned the ethic of hard work and a sense of fairness while growing up in Scranton, while Trump learned that “the best way to get rich is to inherit it”.

“If Trump’s stock in Truth Social, his company, drops any lower, he might do better under my tax plan than his,” Biden said, taking aim at the falling value of Trump’s social media platform.

Biden did not reference Trump’s historic hush-money trial in New York, which is keeping the Republican away from campaigning.

During his visit to Scranton, Biden also visited his childhood home and drove down an expressway named in his honour.

The US president will continue to Pittsburgh on Wednesday and Philadelphia on Thursday.

Pennsylvania, which has 19 Electoral College votes, is seen as crucial to Biden’s reelection prospects in November.

Biden won Pennsylvania by about 80,000 votes in 2020, flipping it back to the Democratic column after Trump took the state in 2016.

Trump, who was the first Republican to win Pennsylvania since 1988, prevailed over Hillary Clinton by fewer than 45,000 votes.

Despite the US economy posting strong growth and low unemployment, Biden has struggled to convince voters on his economic record.

Trump is trusted by voters to do a better job than Biden on the economy and jobs by a margin of 39 percent to 33 percent, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed last month.