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September 8, 2010 in Nation/World
Obama: Don’t extend tax breaks for wealthiest
President Barack Obama delivers remarks on the economy Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2010, at the Cuyahoga Community College West Campus in Parma, Ohio.
(Full-size photo)(All photos)
CLEVELAND — President Barack Obama strongly defended his opposition to extending Bush-era tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans today and delivered a searing attack on Republicans and their House leader for advocating “the same philosophy that led to this mess in the first place.”
Obama said the struggling U.S. economy can’t afford to spend $700 billion to keep lower tax rates in place for the nation’s highest earners despite a call by House Minority Leader John Boehner and other GOP leaders to do just that.
Speaking in the same city where Boehner, an Ohio Republican, recently ridiculed Obama’s economic stewardship, Obama said Boehner’s policies amount to no more than “cut more taxes for millionaires and cut more rules for corporations.”
Obama’s comments came as the administration rolled out new proposals designed to re-ignite a sputtering recovery, including new tax breaks for businesses and $50 billion for U.S. roads, rails and airports.
“Let me be clear to Mr. Boehner and everyone else. We should not hold middle class tax cuts hostage any longer,” the president said. The administration “is ready this week to give tax cuts to every American making $250,000 or less,” he said.
The sweeping series of Bush tax cuts expires at the end of this year unless Congress renews them. Obama wants to extend the tax cuts except for individuals making over $200,000 a year or families earning over $250,000.
Obama went after Boehner — who would probably become House speaker if Republicans win control of the House in November’s midterm elections — directly by name.
In Boehner’s remarks on Aug. 24, Obama said, the Republican leader offered “no new ideas. There was just the same philosophy we already tried for the last decade, the same philosophy that led to this mess in the first place.”
Ahead of Obama’s speech, Boehner offered his own proposals today, saying in a morning broadcast interview that Congress should freeze all tax rates for two years and should cut federal spending to the levels of 2008, before the deep recession took hold.
“People are asking, ’Where are the jobs?”’ Boehner said, calling the White House “out of touch” with the American public.
Obama gave one of his strongest pitches yet on allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire at the end of this year for wealthy Americans but allowing them to remain in place for everybody else.
Republicans, and even some Democrats, have suggested that it was no time to raise taxes on anybody, given the fragile state of the economy.
The debate is an unwelcome one for dozens of vulnerable Democratic incumbents just weeks before Election Day. Already, a handful of Democrats in conservative or swing districts, such as Reps. Gerry Connolly in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., and Bobby Bright in southeastern Alabama, have come out publicly for extending all the cuts — at least temporarily.
Still other embattled Democrats, wary of alienating middle-class voters, are siding with Obama. In central Ohio, for example, Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy has said the tax cuts for higher earners should be repealed, but middle-income people should see no tax increases.
Obama acknowledged that the recovery that began in late 2009 had slowed considerably.
“And so people are frustrated and angry and anxious about the future. I understand that. I also understand that in a political campaign, the easiest thing for the other side to do is ride this fear and anger all the way to Election Day,” he said.
“The middle class is still treading water, while those aspiring to reach the middle class are doing everything they can to keep from drowning,” Obama said.
Polls have shown a steady slippage in Obama’s approval ratings and an accompanying rise in Republican prospects for winning House and Senate seats in November.
Obama sends 2013 budget proposal to Congress 
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Ninch on September 08 at 7:15 a.m.
The WH is calling Obama’s proposals a LONG-TERM “investment” for economic growth. Translation: No new jobs in current times.
1. A $50 billion infrastructure investment to rebuild and repair the nation’s roads, railways and runways.
—Union jobs only and at only $50 billion not very much infrastructure. Removing “tax loopholes” for the oil industry will rob Peter’s jobs to pay for Paul’s jobs. Note: Obama is such a hypocrite, because as US Senator he voted for these oil industry “tax loopholes” (aka Bush-Cheney energy billl) in exchange for Big Ag subsidies for corn ethanol, and his vote was needed for passage. (Hillary and McCain voted against the Bush-Cheney energy bill.) Big Ag can afford to lose some or all of its ethanol subsidy and the very few jobs it created. Big U.S. Oil will lose tax breaks and pass it on to consumers as well as foreign oil will then be left with an advantage. American oil workers will lose even more jobs… as they have already been hit with Obama’s ill-conceived ILLEGAL (according to federal court decision) moratorium on drilling.
2. A permanent extension of research and development tax credits for businesses.
— Great idea but it will not produce jobs now. The tax credit is already in place and has been extended every year for decades. It is a political ploy to make it look like the Dems are business-friendly.
3. Tax breaks to let businesses quickly write off 100 percent of their spending on new plants and equipment through 2011.
— Makes no sense in the context of job creation. Corporations are already sitting on surplus monies that they are NOT using for hiring but instead to acquire other business. These tax breaks will only increase these “acquisition funds” and create no new jobs. Additionally, the tax breaks for “modernizing” are for only one year (2011) is way too short of period to construct “new plants.” The building permit process may take that long, let alone buying land, design/engineering, and actual construction.
And has been reported, there is no way Congress will get this legislation passed before election day, which gives little hope it will be passed afterwards. Obama and his so-called economic advisers are fully aware of the shortcomings of these proposals, but they decided instead to throw out these “campaign promises” like those made during 2008 because they think American voters are still gullible and will vote for “good intentions” and not concrete solutions.
opiemuyo on September 08 at 8:51 a.m.
Pay not attention to the man behind the curtain, look at me! Classic socialist BS. Cut taxes to stimulate more business, POTUS.
Scoutster on September 08 at 9:10 a.m.
Steve..
Cutting taxes to promote more growth has been tried. DIdn’t work.
Remember “jobs and growth” in 2003? We ended up with neither. How about the original tax cuts in 2001? If its such a great policy, why didn’t it work?
And, how can you blame liberals for the failure? The GOP was totally in charge.
dougfresh on September 08 at 11:57 a.m.
Cutting taxes for the wealthy does nothing for the economy. The wealthy already have all the consumer goods that drive our economy & will not be purchasing that new TV, car, laptop or w/e because they have a few more bucks in their pocket.
in 1970 the 1% highest earners in America controlled 9% of the wealth, today that 1% controls 28% of the wealth. They put their money in real estate, bonds, stocks ,etc. They help create more wealth for the already super wealthy on wall street, and the cycle continues.
Also keep in mind that repealing the Bush tax cuts would only raise the highest marginal rate from 35% to 39.6%. 4.6% is a rate those making the big bucks can deal with.
If our government really wanted to stimulate the economy, they would have 0$ tax due on any wages made under $25,000, and have that paid for by another marginal increase to say 45% for people making over $1 million.
Lower / middle class consumption drives the economy, the only way to get it churning again is to put more money in their pockets. The Repubs are just blind to this fact. Trickle down does not work when only a paltry portion of the excess profits are trickling down.
Diana on September 08 at 12:30 p.m.
Yeah, Steve, still waiting for Reagan’s trickle down to work. Debunked long ago, tax cuts for the top 5% don’t do anything for job creation. Research it.
Albert on September 08 at 1:17 p.m.
This is uncanny and a bit disconcerting - i.e. I was doing some historical research on Benito Mussolini. I came upon Wikipedia’s site and the picture that appears on this article is almost identical to that on wikipedia’s site:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussollini
This is a bit haunting - is history repeating itself before our very eyes????
SpokaneLiberal on September 08 at 1:39 p.m.
I’ll bite Albert. I read the Mussolini article. I couldn’t find anything in the article about a marginal tax rate increase or domestic infrastructure spending. I did see that under the wiki for FDR. In fact the thing that stood out was a centralization of power in the chief executive (Mussolini) - which is more similar to our immediately preceding president than our current one.
Now on to the point. Tax the rich. Why not? The trickle never did come down this way, so it is time to stop the costly cuts….
libmark on September 08 at 1:50 p.m.
Tax the rich, yes. But $200,000 per year shouldn’t be the cutoff. It should be a bit higher. Best argument that I’ve seen for letting the tax cuts expire but also for raising the amount one can make before being affected by the expiring tax cuts: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2010/08/16/100816ta_talk_surowiecki
soccermomsusie on September 08 at 2:23 p.m.
So Barry O’Kenyan Obamatron thinks he wants to bring our taxes to where President Reagan had them during his Holy Reign by taxing the rich again. I can’t believe his gall by trying to emulate the gipper. Nice try!
Nonetheless, GWB is still my favorite president (sorry RWR). He was able to see in the future and cut taxes knowing there was going to be a surplus in the future from which to cut. This vision was a gift from God. Unfortunately, Satan had a time machine (probably built by Bill Gates - that’s right - the same guy who programmed and built the Obamatron, otherwise known as POTUS). Satan took the time machine and ruined everything by making the future less prosperous and ruined GWB’s and Our Lord’s tax cut plan.
All I am saying is that if we repeal the tax cuts on the wealthy, we ruin GWB’s and the Almighty’s Plan. Don’t let the devil and his socialist time machine win!!!
Here’s a riddle: Why are the rich so rich?
Give up?
Answer: Because it’s God’s will. That’s why.
Steve, I am with you! Cut taxes and get a better economy. Why don’t we do what we really should do, have no taxes at all and have the best economy in the universe. Look at all the great countries that have so much because they have no taxes and compare them to socialist nightmares like Norway, Sweden and yes, you - CANADA!!
HEAR OUR VOICE!!!!
Shadedmuse on September 08 at 2:28 p.m.
Soccer mom susie, you must of got off your meds because your posting your crazyness again, you need to inform your nurse to take away your computer and up your meds.
As for tax increase, I say raise taxes on companies that off shore their head office and all their jobs.
Shadedmuse on September 08 at 2:31 p.m.
oh one other note, Canada and Sweden have stronger better economies and lower unemployment then the U.S, so the truth is taxes help the economy.
bdr on September 08 at 2:54 p.m.
Obama should tax 100% for Goldman,Country wide,Lehman, GM top earners…….that was our money to begin with.
greyhound2 on September 08 at 3:48 p.m.
The Bush give-away tax cuts for the wealthy should expire. The average middle class taxpayer saw a benefit cut of about $40 a year. The top 1% which owns 70% of the wealth saw about $40 million in savings.
Giving money to the wealthy does not create one job, it only pads off-shore bank accounts out of reach of the IRS. There is no use in quibbling with Republicans, who only want to make sure their masters get the lions share, and the $40 for the middle class is not worth the effort. Corporate profits have increased 39% this quarter compared to last year, according to Nightly Business Report on PBS, while wages have increased only about 1%. So guess who is getting all the money! The free ride for the top tier is over. For the top 2%, time to pay up your fair share.
gslbball on September 08 at 4:24 p.m.
Wow! From most of the above posts, all I can say is thank goodness all the low income and middle income people are creating all the jobs.
greyhound2 on September 08 at 4:37 p.m.
Don’t feel too sorry for the top 2% income. About 90% of it is third generation inherited. A few blips on the radar screen, like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, are such a small percentage that they don’t even show up in the satistics, or even on the radar screen. You have a much far better track to upper wealth with a lottery ticket than you have working your fingers to the bone. Work hard, and keep your nose to the grindstone, and it will get you nowhere.
gslbball1 on September 08 at 4:51 p.m.
Almost felt sorry for the Greyhound for a fleeting moment, Then, I remembered the old saw that says whining as he does about one’s lot in life, and criticizing those who make or have more (and wanting to put your hand in their pocket), is the only certainty to get one no where.
soccermomsusie on September 08 at 5:02 p.m.
glbtball, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Like all the middle class and low income people create jobs! That’s what socialist FDR thought too. How’s this supposed to work? Working people have money to spend and then they buy stuff from other working people, investors create manufacturing plants which in turn are staffed by more working people.
You know what this sounds like? Cancer! That’s right, jobs spread like a communist cancer, and in the meantime, wealthy people (the one God said should be our overseers) are left withering on the vine.
No thanks! Ronald Wilson Reagan had it right when he turned this FDR socialist formula upside down.
“Booo Hooo, All the rich people moved our jobs overseas with the money Reagan gave them!” Quit your whining, Liberal Demoncrats!! You could have either: A. Moved overseas to work the job you supposedly like so much, or B. Become rich yourselves - it’s called AMWAY!!!!
HEAR OUR VOICE!!!
horse_feathers on September 08 at 5:06 p.m.
I’ve never worked for a poor person. I have helped the poor but never been paid money by them. Hmm
soccermomsusie on September 08 at 5:15 p.m.
Horse Feathers, Here’s what your lib demontard would say: “If you worked at a McDonalds and a poor person came in for some McRibs, you are working for a poor person. If you work in the potato chip factory and a lot of poor persons can now afford to buy your potato chips that means more jobs at the factory. Maybe, that poor person needs a flea collar and you work at the flea collar factory….”
You get it.
Can you believe this tripe? This is the kind of commie/nazi garbage that FDR sold to our parents!!! And they bought it.
Only we were smart enough and cared enough about God’s plan to say, “Forget it. I want my tax money to support the wealthy. They are our God-given benefactors. If they care to trickle something down upon me or move my job to China, that is their right. I will be true to the Lord’s plan because he is returning soon. I will want for nothing.”
God Bless You Horse Feathers, you understand!!!
HEAR OUR VOICE!!!!
greyhound2 on September 08 at 5:24 p.m.
Soccermomsusie: You have a great sense of humor!
Albert on September 08 at 6:40 p.m.
@ SpokeLiberal, please look at the faces, then look at the agendas…they are identical. That’s what hit me - no political tones here, just historical crossroads.
spokanecougar on September 08 at 6:47 p.m.
So FDR was enacting Nazi policies the same time he was trying to defeat them? Stupid susie have you ever read a history book? Do you know what the Nazi’s were even doing during WW2? Such an ignorant statement by an ignorant person.
SpokaneLiberal on September 08 at 6:54 p.m.
@Albert
Obama - bigger lips, looking up, head tilted, stronger jaw, weaker cheekbones.
Mussolini- thinner lips, lighter skin, looking straight ahead, weaker jaw stronger cheekbones.
Agendas
Obama - small business tax cuts, spending to keep state workers working, infrastructure spending, diplomacy and reduction in foreign entanglements
Mussolini-builds farms on reclaimed land, uses a police state to maintain control, aggressive nationalism/expansion
NOPE
liarsinnews on September 08 at 7:04 p.m.
To all of you GOP haters. Both parties are responsible. One party is as bad as the other. All of the career political pimps in Washington DC need enemas along with the digested food given to the bull and get rid of it once and for all. Post haste!!
liarsinnews on September 08 at 7:08 p.m.
Addendum: For gawd sakes, Obama does not need a single GOP vote with the majority party at the helm. “STEER” them Nancy.
misjustice on September 08 at 8:17 p.m.
Well, guess the blame for this tax debacle should be placed with Frist and DeLay; when they pushed through the tax cuts for the fabulously wealthy they did it through reconciliation which has a 10 year time limit on “laws” passed this way. Their bad!
Dazzeetrader11 on September 08 at 10:00 p.m.
1. Tax cuts have been the only thing to stabilize and economy.
2.Shaded and Scoutster…you just make it up as you go. Nothing you wrote is true. No facts…just your opinion you’re trying to pass off as facts.
3. Two things need to be done. Cut spending and cut taxes….to stimulate growth. Nothing else has ever worked.
4. No matter what the trickle down position is called, it worked and worked well untill Bush went on a Democrat spending spree….and had some wars to pay for. Neither of those two actions have changed since this Peacock fraud Obama Checked in with his lies a deceit.
5. Rand D funding and rapid depreciation have been going on from the Bush days for at least five years. His “plan” isn’t HIS at all. He’s pirating it. Again nothing will change. It’s just more deception and slight of hand from this incompetent foolish rookie. He doesn’t know economics but he’s got quite an act as a pretender. Listen carefully to his words…what he doesn’t tell you is more important than what he phrases carefully.
6. Nothing he did or said today will creat jobs….he’s stuck ina corner giving speeches agin.
7. Dems have had voting control for the past two voting cycles ( 2006 forward)…nice job huh? They could have done anything they wanted but haven’t Obama is just an advanced expample for their incompetence.
8. It’s over Oibs…November’s coming… The noose and firewall being bult around Obama will wall him off. About time..didn’t take long. Much damage has been done. Today’s events will mean nothing. It’s over.
Dazzeetrader11 on September 08 at 10:36 p.m.
lol Oibs= Libs
Ed Byrnes on September 08 at 10:54 p.m.
I will share my two primary political biases followed by some H.L. Mencken quotes.
I am an economic socialist who completely favors progressive income taxation. I also believe that a negative income tax for our poorest fellow citizens is the most direct way to address poverty and immediately reduce social spending.
I am a social libertarian who completely believes that our government should beat a hasty retreat from our personal lives. The government has no interest in who we sleep with or what we put in our pipe after work.
On to H.L. Mencken’s thoughts:
“A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.”
“A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.”
“All government, of course, is against liberty.”
“Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.”
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
“If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.”
“It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get into trouble by taking their visions and hallucinations too seriously.”
“Most people want security in this world, not liberty.”
“The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.”
I wish he were with us today….
Dazzeetrader11 on September 09 at 1:57 a.m.
Well…HL is sorta correct.
Just don’t make the rest of live by others’ ideas.
I’ll pick myown path in America….most of us want that.
No ambition= no growth.
Obama won’t get support for this idea of his.
Finally he’s unmasked himself…and he’s a SOCIALIST.
Well Done Barack!
It’s not his race. Nope it’s his politics.. And he’s failed miserably.
Novemeber will showhe’s lost everything except 25% of the population ( i/e/ the socialists..)
soccermomsusie on September 09 at 6:18 a.m.
Yes Daisy, you are right. Obama is a socialist! He tipped his hand when he instituted Socialist Bob Dole’s healthcare reform agenda. Call it ObamaCare or BobDoleCare or CorporateBamaDoleCare - it is still SOCIALISM!!!!
HEAR OUR VOICE!!!!
misjustice on September 09 at 1:55 p.m.
David Stockman, Reagan’s budget director and a budget hawk, is against extending the Bush tax cuts; oh, and so is Greenspan. Both a lot smarter than our own DAZER, but not as entertaining.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/08/02/128933945/david-stockman-opposes-extended-bush-tax-cuts-icymi
Stockman has recently become vocal in his denouncement of Trickle Down Economics.
If tax cuts to the top 2% worked so well, why in the last three years, of a ten year tax cut, did our economy tank? Where’s the jobs these cuts produced?
I’m beginning to think that the only person in ‘Merica that still believes in Trickle Down Economics is DAZER!
And maybe diNO!