President Obama favors tax cut extensions

President Barack Obama has spoken out in favor of extending the Bush tax cuts for middle class families.

“I want to make my priorities clear from the start,” Obama said. “One: middle-class families need permanent tax relief. And two: I believe we can’t afford to borrow and spend another $700 billion on permanent tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.”

The president said he agrees with Republicans that the deficit needs to be brought under control, but that the country cannot afford the additional $700 billion it would cost to extend tax cuts to the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. “We’d be digging ourselves into an even deeper fiscal hole and passing the burden on to our children,” Obama said.[...]

“For the past decade, they saw their costs rise, their incomes fall, and too many jobs go overseas,” the president said. “They’re the ones bearing the brunt of the recession. They are the ones who need relief right now.”

He called on Congress to act on his proposal to freeze non-security discretionary spending for three years as a way of reducing government spending. “It would bring this spending down to its lowest level as share of the economy in 50 years,” Obama said.

Make no mistake about it. If Congress passes an extension for the wealthy, we are not doing anything we can to dig ourselves out of a hole dug by the Republicans in the early 2000s.