Excerpts
GWEN IFILL (Newshour): The president sought today to get his ideas for reducing red ink off the ground. Republicans insisted his talk of raising taxes will never fly.
President Obama unveiled his $3.6 trillion plan to tackle the deficit by raising taxes and cutting spending in the White House Rose Garden this morning.
U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We can't just cut our way out of this hole. It's going to take a balanced approach.
GWEN IFILL: The president's call for balance has run into headwinds before. And he acknowledged the criticism that would greet his latest proposal.
BARACK OBAMA: Now, we're already hearing the usual defenders of these kinds of loopholes saying, "This is just class warfare." I reject the idea that asking a hedge fund manager to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or teacher is class warfare. I think it's just the right thing to do.
This is not class warfare. It's math. The money is going to have to come from someplace.
GWEN IFILL: The White House math includes $1.5 trillion in new revenues raised by allowing $800 billion in tax breaks to expire for families earning more than $250,000 a year.
It would also limit tax deductions for the wealthy and eliminate tax loopholes for big business. Republicans have objected to this approach, saying it would hurt the people who create jobs.
On the spending side, the president's plan would cut $580 billion in costs from mandatory benefit programs, including $248 billion from Medicare and $66 billion from Medicaid.
Mr. Obama pledged to reject any Republican efforts to cut spending without raising new revenues.
BARACK OBAMA: I will not support any plan that puts all of the burden for closing our deficit on ordinary Americans.
And I will veto any bill that changes benefits for those who rely on Medicare but does not raise serious revenues by asking the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to pay their fair share.
GWEN IFILL: House Speaker John Boehner ruled out increasing taxes just last week.
BARACK OBAMA: So the speaker says we can't have it "My way or the highway" and then basically says "My way or the highway." That's not smart. It's not right. If we're going to meet our responsibilities, we have to do it together.
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ROBERT GREENSTEIN, Executive Director, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: I was impressed.
This is a plan that provides measures to create jobs in the short term, but then focuses in on substantial deficit reduction as the economy recovers. It achieves the goal that every bipartisan commission over the last two years has said is the key, to get the deficit down to the point where the debt is no longer growing faster than the economy. It does it in a balanced way.
And it's not some big liberal high-tax plan. One fact shows that. It has somewhere between half-a-trillion and three-quarters-of-a-trillion less in revenue increases than the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson commission plan and the Gang of Six plan, both of which had Republican senators endorsing them.
COMMENT: Typical Republican (aka The Tea Party) view, "Our way or No Way."
Also, they care ONLY about people who have enough money (income) to live very well, the rest of us can "jump in the lake" and drown.
This is also a "stop Obama from doing anything" 2012 Campaign political move, aka "sacrifice the U.S. economy" so we (Republicans) win.
ALSO:
"Obama Draws New Hard Line on Long-Term Debt Reduction" by JACKIE CALMES, New York Times 9/19/2011
Excerpt
Mr. Obama also seems to have given up on his strategy of nearly a year, beginning when Republicans won control of the House last November, of being the eager-to-compromise “reasonable adult” — in the White House’s phrasing — in his relations with them. He had sought to build a personal relationship with Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, a man the White House saw as a possible partner across the aisle, in the hopes of making bipartisan progress and simultaneously winning points with independent voters who disdain partisanship. Even if the efforts produced few agreements with Republicans, the White House figured, independents would give Mr. Obama credit for trying.
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