Obama pushes for tax hike on top earners, extension of Bush-era rates for others

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Fox News:

President Obama, amid charges of class warfare, pushed Monday for a tax hike on families earning more than $250,000 -- and an extension of the Bush-era tax rates for families making less than that.

The president, speaking in the East Room of the White House, said he wants to break through the "stalemate" over taxes in Congress. He argued that sustaining the current tax rates for top earners puts too big a hole in the federal budget, saying "we can't afford to keep that up." Obama called on Congress to extend those rates, for one year, for families earning less than $250,000 -- failure to do so, he said, would be a "blow" to families and a "drag" on the economy.

"We don't need more top-down economics," Obama said. "We need policies that grow and strengthen the middle class."

The president urged Congress to pass a bill that deals with the middle-class tax rates only, and then move on to a separate debate over extending the rates for top earners. Obama, though, made clear he is adamantly opposed to doing so.

"I will fight to end them," Obama said, adding that he doesn't want that debate to "threaten" those making less than $250,000.

When asked later in a TV interview with North Carolina's WRAL whether he would veto any bill that extended all the tax cuts, Obama said, "yes, and the reason is, we can't afford it."

The proposal comes just days after Obama courted the blue-collar vote in the battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania, where he talked frequently about middle-class values.

The pitch is the latest proposal from a White House that has had a complicated relationship with the Bush-era tax rates, which have been in effect for nearly a decade. Obama at first held back on letting any of those rates expire during the height of the recession, saying in 2009 that would be "the last thing you want to do" because it would "take more demand out of the economy."

He then negotiated with Republicans in 2010 to extend the rates for another two years.

But campaign adviser Robert Gibbs said over the weekend that Obama is now "100 percent committed" to ending the rates for those making more than $250,000.

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He's got nothing else left.