ABC News: “As the clock ticks toward a tax hike on all Americans in 20 days, President Obama predicted Republicans would join Democrats to extend current rates for 98 percent of earners before the end of the year.”:
“I'm pretty confident that Republicans would not hold middle class taxes hostage to trying to protect tax cuts for high-income individuals.”
During an interview yesterday on Bloomberg Television, President Obama said that Republican math doesn’t add up:
“It's not me being stubborn; it's not me being partisan. It's just a matter of math.”
If you decide to watch the interview, let me just note that it seems to me that the interviewer, Julianna Goldman, is sympathetic to John Boehner’s recalcitrant, do-nothing Republican House.
In Saturday's weekly GOP address, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Ut) accused President Obama of “a classic bait and switch” on fiscal cliff negotiations:
“What [Obama] proposed this week was a classic bait and switch on the American people—a tax increase double the size of what he campaigned on, billions of dollars in new stimulus spending and an unlimited, unchecked authority to borrow from the Chinese.
Maybe I missed it but I don’t recall him asking for any of that during the presidential campaign. These ideas are so radical that they have already been rejected on a bipartisan basis by Congress.”
Watch:
As is the absolute normal in these times, if it’s a Republican talking, it spews pure nonsense. Think Progress notes, emphasis mine:
Obama’s proposal — which includes $1.6 trillion in increased taxes on the rich over the next decade, $400 billion in savings in Medicare and other social programs, $50 billion in stimulus spending to begin next year, and an end to current debt ceiling rules — is not new or radical: it reflects the very same same policies Obama advanced for years and promoted extensively on the campaign trail.
For instance, Obama’s FY 2013 budget — released in February 2012 — raised “an additional $1.7 trillion in revenue” and proposed $360 billion in savings from entitlement programs, including Medicare and Medicaid. (Comparatively, Simpson-Bowles called for $2.7 trillion revenue over 10 years, more than what Obama requested). Obama advocated for additional stimulative spending throughout the campaign, calling for a path “forward” that will “continue investing in education and infrastructure.”
Republicans are feigning shock that Obama is proposing to implement the very same policies that Americans voted for in November, as they seek to define his second term agenda and bolster their own negotiating position. Meanwhile, they have yet to offer their own detailed proposal to avert the cliff.
ABC News: “As the clock ticks toward a tax hike on all Americans in 20 days, President Obama predicted Republicans would join Democrats to extend current rates for 98 percent of earners before the end of the year.”:
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