Obama On Tax Cuts: President Rejects Republican Plan To Close Loopholes

[onehandle]

Source: Huffington Post

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama has rejected an idea put forward by House Speaker John Boehner and other Republicans to close unspecified tax loopholes in order to pay for extending all tax cuts as part of a deal to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff. Obama's simple explanation: I won.

"But when it comes to the top 2 percent, what I'm not going to do is to extend further a tax cut for folks who don't need it, which would cost close to a trillion dollars. And it's very difficult to see how you make up that trillion dollars, if we're serious about deficit reduction, just by closing loopholes and deductions," the president said at a White House news conference on Wednesday. "The math tends not to work," he said.

He then pivoted to the campaign. "If there was one thing that everybody understood, that was a big difference between myself and Mr. Romney, it was when it comes to how we reduce our deficit, I argued for a balanced, responsible approach -- and part of that included making sure that the wealthiest Americans pay a little bit more," he said. "By the way, more voters agreed with me on this issue than voted for me."

"The only question now is, are we going to hold the middle class hostage in order to go ahead and let that happen?" said Obama.


Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/14/obama-tax-cuts_n_2131256.html

[secondwind]

1. He is still talking......

[DJ13]

2. He needs to stop trying to compromise, and let the "cliff" happen

That will put him in a stronger position than trying to prevent any tax increases on the middle class by compromising now.

[1StrongBlackMan]

4. No, it wouldn't ...

it would cause needless pain to the millions of Americans whose taxes would go up.

Plus, once over the cliff, the argument would shift to "President Obama is hurting the middle/working classes, just to prevent the wealthy from getting the tax cut everyone else would get." That is a far weaker position to defend than puching the Senate Bill, right now.

[pinto]

3. Chuck Todd clearly tried to bait him. Obama was more diplomatic in answering.

(paraphrasing) Said he wanted to hear all points of view during the discussions. Yet, if the top 2% don't carry their fair share, he won't shift that burden to the middle class.

[qwlauren35]

5. I Have Mixed Feelings on This

We already know that most rich avoid paying taxes through loopholes. Like lower capital gains taxes. I'm not sure that raising the income tax will affect them. If there was a loophole that only impacted the 1%, I say close it instead of changing the tax rate. Ending the mortgage interest deduction for example, would be disastrous for many middle-income folks. But if you put a cap on the deduction, that would be effective for those who are financing homes, instead of paying cash for them.

The bottom line is for them to "pay their share". I'm not sure I care how that happens, as long as it doesn't happen to the bottom 99%.

[groundloop]

6. Very true..... some loopholes need to be closed. But Boehner never said which loopholes ......

he was willing to close. Yeah, sure, President Obama is going to agree to give up his opening position based on a bunch of unspecific talking points.