Obama renews call for Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest expire.

[Bill USA]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-let-bush-era-tax-cuts-wealthiest-expire-172849154.html

.... President Barack Obama called Monday for a one-year extension of Bush-era tax cuts on annual income up to $250,000, while letting those that chiefly benefit the very wealthy expire on schedule at year's end. The proposal reignited an election-year fight designed to polish his credentials as a champion for middle-class Americans.

"It's time to let the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, folks like myself, to expire," he said in the East Room of the White House, surrounded by people he warned could see a $2,200 jump in their tax bill if the rates expire. "I'm not proposing anything radical here," he insisted, casting the move as a return to the tax rates in force under President Bill Clinton, who presided over an era of robust job growth.

Obama's announcement echoed his core campaign message on the economy, the top issue on voters' minds. He did not refer to Mitt Romney by name, but tried to make the debate over the upper-bracket tax cuts central to the election.

"The fate of the tax cut for the wealthiest Americans will be decided by the outcome of the next election. My opponent will fight to keep them in place, I will fight to end them," he said. "The American people are with me on this."Obama aides say they hope that the "tax fairness" argument will win over voters struggling in the fitful economy three and a half years after he took office vowing to fix it.
<more>

[SoCalMusicLover]

1. Just Like You Let Them Expire The Last Time

No problem, I'm sure after you get re-elected, you can come up with a new excuse as to why the cuts had to be extended for EVERYBODY.

If all else fails, you can fall back on the tried and true...."but the republicans made me do it" meme.

[Bill USA]

3. Repubs want Bush tax cuts extended but for everybody even those making a million bucks /year or more

As long as Republicans continue filibuster stimulus/jobs bills the economy will just drag along. That has been their plan ever since they decided they would fight Obama on everything so they could campaign in 2012 saying: "Look how bad Obama is for the economy!"


Without GOP, Unemployment Would be Under 6%

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/1025337/without_gop%2C_unemployment_would_be_under_6/

The GOP has been on an economic wrecking mission ever since the election of Barack Obama - indeed we now know that leading Republican strategists and legislators met and planned a course of economic sabotage and complete obstruction on Obama's very first day in office.

~~
~~

Normally in a recession and recovery government at all levels increase public employment - this has happened in every GOP administration - and much of that increase is funded by federal government grants to the state and local governments. But since the Stimulus, the GOP has blocked any substantial help for the states, and in GOP led states severe austerity cuts have been the rule - even including GOP governors rejecting projects fully funded by the federal government. The economic cost of this is far more than just those 600 thousand jobs - the spillover effect on private business and local economies has been devastating - when you factor in all these effects the total job cost of austerity has been estimated at 2.3 million jobs.

President Obama proposed the American Jobs Act in his 2011 State of the Union address, and spent the next year promoting it at every opportunity. Although expensive - it contained a combination of targeted tax cuts and some tax increases, along with direct spending designed to increase consumer spending and lower the cost to business of hiring new workers, all while paying for the bill. The CBO said the bill would not only have paid for itself within 10 years, but would have reduced the deficit by at least 6 billion dollars. According to an analysis by Moody's it would have created about 1.9 million jobs.

The result of GOP obstruction with those two things cost us 2.3 million jobs and 1.9 million jobs respectively. US employment as of May 2011 is about 155 million jobs, which means those 4.2 million jobs that the GOP has prevented account for 2.7% of the unemployment rate. But let's be fair, there is a small amount of overlap in those jobs - a small portion (about 8%) of the American Jobs Act would have gone to State and Local governments to pay for teachers, first responders and the like - although for the most part it would have just prevented further layoffs rather than resulted in new hires. It is also very likely that without the economic wrecking of GOP obstructionism the labor participation rate would be higher - so instead of a reduction of unemployment to 5.5% it would be slightly higher, but still well under 6%.
<more>

Unemployment Rate Without Government Cuts: 7.1% - The Wall Street Journal

In April the household survey showed that that there were 442,000 fewer people working in government than in March. The household survey has a much smaller sample size than the establishment survey, and so is prone to volatility, but the magnitude of the drop is striking: It marks the largest decline on both an absolute and a percentage basis on record going back to 1948. Moreover, the household survey has consistently showed bigger drops in government employment than the establishment survey has.

The unemployment rate would be far lower if it hadn’t been for those cuts: If there were as many people working in government as there were in December 2008, the unemployment rate in April would have been 7.1%, not 8.1%.
<more>

Those cuts to government were because of cuts to programs demanded by the GOP, the party that a few years ago was saying: "Deficits don't matter" - when they were destroying the surplus, created in the Clinton administration, and creating the deficit.

[gregoire]

2. He signed an extention...

now he wants to undo it? I wish he would make up his mind. The more (and only, actually) sensible thing to do instead is to double them. The small increase Obama wants is an insult to all working people.

[rfranklin]

4. How about concentrating on bashing Romney?

You can get as critical as you want after the election.

[SoCalMusicLover]

5. And It Will Do Just As Much Good

Politicians will still be politicians.

Promises will still be merely political "statements" and "desires" made to be broken.

Obama's & Romney's views on this issue are completely different, but the result will be the same under a Presidency for either.

Mr. Obama panders to the middle class, while giving a wink and a nod to his extremely important cash cows in the top 1%, assuring them that status quo will be maintained, one way or another.

You can pretty much do ANYTHING you want to us as Americans. JUST DON'T RAISE OUR TAXES, OR THERE WILL BE REAL TROUBLE!!