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Obama, Boehner clash on which tax cuts to keep

President claims the GOP is borrowing $700 billion to give  ‘tax cuts of $100,000 to folks who are already millionaires.’

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By Jack Torry, Washington Bureau Updated 1:52 AM Thursday, September 9, 2010

WASHINGTON — Declaring that House Minority leader John Boehner has “no new ideas,’’ President Barack Obama accused the West Chester Twp. Republican of holding “middle class tax cuts hostage’’ by demanding that expiring tax cuts for the wealthy also be extended.

In a speech on the economy in Cleveland Wednesday, Sept. 8, Obama assailed Boehner by name eight times, charging that he and other Republican lawmakers want to “give a permanent tax cut to the wealthiest two percent of Americans.’’

Obama did not single out any other Republican by name. It is part of a White House strategy to direct voter attention to Boehner, who Democrats believe is an unpopular and polarizing figure.

Obama was referring to a broad array of tax cuts approved in 2001 and 2003 by Congress and signed into law by former President George W. Bush. Most of those tax cuts expire at the end of this year.

Obama wants to extend the tax cuts for families earning less than $250,000 a year. By contrast, Boehner and most congressional Republicans want to extend all the tax cuts, arguing the economic recovery is too fragile to raise taxes on anyone.

“With all the other budgetary pressures we have — with all the Republicans’ talk about wanting to shrink the deficit — they would have us borrow $700 billion over the next 10 years to give a tax cut of about $100,000 each to folks who are already millionaires,’’ Obama said.

In a brief response, Boehner said that if Obama “is serious about finally focusing on jobs, a good start would be taking the advice of his recently departed budget director and freezing all tax rates, coupled with cutting federal spending to where it was before all the bailouts, government takeovers, and stimulus spending sprees.’’

Boehner was referring to an opinion piece Monday in the New York Times by Peter Orszag, who this summer left his post as White House budget director. Orszag urged that Congress “extend the tax cuts for two years and then end them altogether.’’

Jack Torry is the Washington reporter for the Dayton Daily News and The Columbus Dispatch.

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