Online Town Hall Allows Obama To Push Jobs Package

President Obama today pitched his American Jobs Act to the roughly 44 million users of the online professional networking site, LinkedIn.

The president spoke briefly following an introduction by LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, and then took questions from members of an audience gathered at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.

Though the topics of the questions varied, they all provided Obama an opportunity to pitch the $447 billion jobs package he formally unveiled earlier this month. A question about jobs for veterans allowed the president to highlight a provision of the plan that gives tax credits to businesses that hire returning soldiers. A pair of questions about what the administration is doing to help out-of-work Americans gave Obama a chance to explain that his plan would extend unemployment benefits for the millions currently in need of assistance.

Perhaps the most interesting moment of the event came when Obama called on a seemingly random audience member who asked him to raise taxes on the wealthy. The man, who did not issue his name, told the President that he had earned a good amount of money from having invested in a nearby search engine startup — presumed to be Google — and said that it “kills” him that Congress failed last year to end the Bush tax cuts for top earners.

“I think that needs to change,” the man said.

Obama responded by saying that he does not begrudge those who are wealthy. “America’s success is premised on individuals, entrepreneurs having a great idea, going out there and pursuing their dreams, and making a whole lot of money in the process — and that’s great.”

He argued, however, that at a time when the federal government is looking at tightening its belt, revenues are going to have to increase in order for investments to continue.

“So often the tax debate gets framed as class warfare,” Obama said. “This is not an issue of ‘do we somehow try to punish those who’ve done well?’ That’s the last thing we wanna do.”

Earlier this month, Obama proposed covering the cost of his jobs plan in part by raising tax rates on individuals earning more than $200,000 per year and increasing capital gains taxes on millionaire investors. The White House says that adopting both of those higher rates would generate $1.5 trillion in revenue over the course of the next decade.

Update on Monday, September 26, 2011 at 5:50PM by Geoff Holtzman

CBS’s Mark Knoller tweets that the man who asked President Obama to raise his taxes is Doug Edwards, former Director of Consumer Marketing & Brand Management for Google.