President Barack Obama reaffirmed on July 9 that he wants to end Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, but extend for one year tax cuts in place for the middle class.
Barack Obama
Obama said he wants to let the Bush-era taxes expire for Americans earning more than $250,000 a year. He also said he wanted to renew for one year the tax cuts for those making less than $250,000, a proposal that would include 97% of small businesses.
“We need policies that grow and strengthen the middle class,” Obama said. “So that’s why I believe it’s time to let the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans — folks like myself — to expire. Anybody making over $250,000 a year should go back to the income tax rates we were paying under Bill Clinton — back when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest budget surplus in history and plenty of millionaires to boot.”
Obama said that if Congress doesn’t extend the tax cuts for middle-class Americans, millions could see their taxes go up by $2,200, starting Jan. 1, 2013.
“The folks who create most new jobs in America are America’s small business owners,” Obama said. “So this isn’t about taxing job creators, this is about helping job creators. I want to give them relief. I want to give those 97% a sense of permanence.”
In December 2010, the president agreed to tax cuts imposed under his predecessor, George Bush, for two years in a deal he brokered with Republican congressional leaders. That deal, he said, was designed to protect additional unemployment benefits for the middle class.
Obama’s budget proposal, released in February, would rein in the amount top earners could claim in itemized deductions. By limiting itemized deductions to 28%, the change would lessen the benefit wealthy Americans earn from charitable donations and their home mortgage interest. The change is forecast to raise about $150 billion.
The budget would cut the government’s spending by $1.1 trillion over the next decade, an Obama Administration member told the Associated Press.
