Justice is being rationed in the United States, an apparently sober Vice President Joe Biden declared Tuesday in a rambling speech to a special interest group in the legal industry.
Americans must “not be the victims of the rationing of justice,” said Biden, who is trying to win support among progressive groups as he tries to run for the Democrats’ presidential nomination next year.
“It is the ultimate measure of who we are as a country, the extent to which we guarantee every American access to the justice system — every American,” Biden told the audience of lawyers at the 40th anniversary meeting of the Legal Service Corp. Tuesday.
The LSC’s lawyers are paid by taxpayers to provide free legal services to defendants in criminal court, but have also worked to expand the role of government in Americans’ lives.
“The LSC’s use of taxpayer funds has often been dubious; promoting the advancement of big-government priorities as opposed to representing the legal interests of the poor,” according to a 2011 report by the Heritage Foundation.
“They’ve sued job creators and lobbied the federal government for the expansion of welfare programs… [it] has become an arm of big-government liberalism,” Heritage said.