CLEVELAND – US president Barack Obama said Republicans are advocating the same “flawed policies” that contributed to the worst recession since the 1930s and said the nation could not afford extending tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
Mr Obama said he recognised that the recovery had been “painfully slow” and he called on Congress to enact measures to cut taxes for businesses and middle-income Americans while letting rates rise for the richest taxpayers.
The president accused his opponents of playing politics instead of working on solutions for the country.
“People are frustrated and angry and anxious about the future,” Mr Obama said yesterday at Cuyahoga Community College West Campus in Parma, Ohio, outside Cleveland. “I understand that. I also understand that in a political campaign, the easiest thing for the other side to do is ride this fear and anger all the way to election day.”
The president’s insistence on letting the top tax rates expire at the end of this year sets up an election-year confrontation with Republicans, who are seeking to take control of the House and Senate with campaigns focused on the economy and the federal budget deficit.
House Republican leader John Boehner said yesterday that lawmakers should freeze government spending at 2008 levels and extend the Bush-era tax cuts for everyone for two years.
“You can’t have a strong economy if you’re raising taxes on the very people you expect to invest in our economy to begin hiring people again,” Mr Boehner, of Ohio, said in an interview on ABC television.
Mr Obama repeatedly made reference to the coming election and singled out Mr Boehner for criticism.
Mr Boehner offered “the same philosophy that led to this mess in the first place: cut more taxes for millionaires and cut more rules for corporations”. Those policies “gave us the illusion of prosperity”, Mr Obama said.
Republicans, he said, had refused to work with Democrats “to tackle our problems in a practical way”.
Mr Obama has endorsed extending tax cuts passed under former president George W Bush for those earning less than $200,000 per individual or $250,000 per couple ,while letting rates for those who make more rise after the end of the year. “We should not hold middle-class tax cuts hostage any longer,” Mr Obama said. – (Bloomberg)