Boehner May Budge On Tax Cuts

After a week of drawing lines in the sand over the expiring Bush tax cuts, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) hinted yesterday that he would be open to compromise.

Boehner remarked on CBS’s ‘Face The Nation’ that he would consider voting for a package of tax cuts for the middle class, even if it did not include relief for the wealthy.

“If the only option I have is to vote for some of those tax reductions. I’ll vote for them,” he said. The top House Republican added later, however, that allowing the cuts to expire for top earners would be “bad policy.”

The nuanced stance comes at the end of a week in which Boehner went indirectly toe to toe with President Barack Obama over what Congress should do when the series of tax breaks expires at the end of the year. Obama has made it clear that he wants Congress to extend the package for those making less than $250,000 per year, and last week rebuked Boehner’s proposal to freeze current tax rates for all Americans for at least two years.

Today, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs appeared on a series of morning talk shows to respond to Boehner’s comments.

“We welcome John Boehner’s change in position and support for the middle class tax cuts, but time will tell if his actions will be anything but continued support for the failed policies that got us into this mess.”

The President, who made stops in Cleveland and Milwaukee last week to promote new proposals aimed at creating jobs, is expected to make remarks about the economy in Northern Virginia this afternoon.

President Takes Swipes At GOP Over Economic Proposals

President Barack Obama spent a good portion of his eighth full press conference in office touting his administration’s efforts to turn the nation’s weak economy around.

Responding to questions from reporters, the president accused his White House predecessor, former President George W. Bush, of creating a years-long recession America has yet to climb out of. Obama said his decision in the past year to cut taxes for middle class Americans and spend billions on domestic programs saved the U.S. from succumbing to a depression.

The president did not mention Bush by name, but argued that the two-term Republican’s poor stewardship of the economy ignited the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs in the months before Obama took office.

“We know where that led,” the president said of Bush’s eight years in office.

Mr. Obama touted his recent proposals to create jobs by spending even more on infrastructure. Though he would not refer to his new plan as a “stimulus” measure, he argued that last year’s Recovery Act has worked, albeit not as well as the administration had hoped. In perhaps a mini-battle over semantics, Obama told CBS’s Chip Reid his new proposal would be aimed at stimulating job growth.

Read more about today’s press conference on Twitter

In his opening remarks before taking questions, the president spoke with a firm voice, leveling blows at Republicans for disagreeing with him on not wanting to renew tax breaks for wealthy Americans, and imploring his political opponents to stop standing in the way of passing a small business jobs bill.

“If the Republican leadership is prepared to get serious about doing something for families that are hurting out there, I would love to talk to them,” he said.

Obama did, however, kindly acknowledge Ohio Senator George Voinovich (R), who earlier in the day said he would urge his GOP colleagues to vote ‘yes’ on the bill when Congress returns to session next week.

New Poll Shows More Favor Letting Tax Cuts For Top Earners Expire

A new Gallup poll out today reveals that more Americans would support allowing tax cuts for the nation’s most wealthy individuals to expire at the end of the year.

44% of those surveyed said the tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration should be renewed next year for people making less than $250,000 per year, but not for those making more than that. Comparatively, 37% said they would vote to keep the tax cuts in place for all taxpayers. 15% said they would allow all the tax cuts to expire.

The debate in Washington this fall promises to center around the issue of what to do about the tax cuts. President Barack Obama has made it clear that he supports raising taxes on the top two percent of Americans, while keeping in place tax cuts for all other income earners. The Obama administration believes that doing so would generate $700 billion in revenue.

Republicans, however, have unitedly called for extending the cuts for all. According to House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), “this would help ease the uncertainty employers and entrepreneurs are facing so they can get back to creating jobs.”

The Gallup poll indicates that views on what to do about the tax cuts fall generally along partisan lines. Among those who said they would vote to extend the complete package of cuts, 54% identified themselves as Republican, compared to just 18% who said they were Democrats. Meanwhile, 60% of Democrats that were surveyed said they favored eliminating the cuts for the wealthy. 32% of Republicans who responded agreed.

Congress will likely take up the issue when it returns to session next week, but immediate action is not expected. The struggle over what to do could take weeks, especially with most lawmakers looking ahead to the November elections. Though the president will continue to call for swift legislation, the White House seems to be acknowledging the ideological battle that will surely occur on Capitol Hill. Just this week, recently resigned OMB Director Peter Orszag urged lawmakers to extend the entire package of cuts.

“[T]he best approach is a compromise: extend the tax cuts for two years and then end them altogether,” he wrote in an editorial featured in the New York Times. “Ideally only the middle-class tax cuts would be continued for now. Getting a deal in Congress, though, may require keeping the high-income tax cuts, too. And that would still be worth it.”

Sparring Over Economy Intensifies Between Obama And Boehner

During his speech on the economy yesterday in Ohio, President Barack Obama directly confronted House GOP leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) over his party’s accusations that the current administration’s fiscal policies have hurt the nation more than they have helped.

Obama spoke outside of Cleveland, a few miles from where Boehner delivered a speech two weeks ago, and referred to Boehner seven times throughout the course of his remarks, denouncing the Republican’s proposal to extend the Bush-era tax cuts.

It came as no surprise that the president’s impassioned speech, in which he took mulitiple shots at the GOP, coincided with the start of this year’s final campaign stretch run.

Obama accused Republicans of “rooting against the recovery,” and told the audience that a vote for the GOP this November would be a vote to take the country backwards.

“When these same Republicans, including Mr. Boehner, were in charge, the number of earmarks and pet projects went up, not down,” Obama said. “There are no new policies from Mr. Boehner. There are no new ideas.” 

Immediately after Obama finished speaking, Boehner and other GOP figures took to Twitter to instantly respond.

“Instead of focusing on me, @BarackObama should work w/GOP to cut spending & stop the tax hikes to help create jobs,” read a Tweet from Boehner.

“Guess [Obama] missed the $1.5 trillion [in spending cuts] we offered,” tweeted House Minority Whip Eric Cantor’s (R-Va.) press secretary.

Obama: Koran Burning Is ‘Contrary To Our Values’

President Barack Obama weighed in Thursday on a Florida pastor’s proposal to burn copies of the Koran this Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

“If he’s listening, I hope [Pastor Terry Jones] understands that what he’s proposing to do is completely contrary to our values as Americans,” Obama said during an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that aired this morning. “I just want him to understand that this stunt that he is talking about pulling could greatly endanger our young men and women who are in uniform,” the president added.

Obama certainly is not the first major political leader to comment on the controversy, yet he may have had good reason to show up late to this particular party. His remarks during an Iftar dinner at the White House last month supporting the rights of a group seeking to build a mosque just blocks from Ground Zero sparked a national debate on the issue that has still not ended.

This time around, however, Obama had plenty of precedent. Earlier this week his top general in Afghanistan, David Petraeus, a man who doesn’t normally interject himself into political matters, rebuked the church’s proposal, saying it would endanger the lives of U.S. troops fighting abroad. The president echoed Petraeus’ sentiment during this morning’s interview, saying, “this is a recruitment bonanza for Al Qaida. You could have serious violence in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

Jones, who heads up the 50-member Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, has drawn worldwide scorn since he announced his proposed stunt back in July. Despite that, the Christian pastor has defended his church’s idea to burn hundreds of copies of the Muslim holy book by arguing that it is constitutional as well as an appropriate response to the 9/11 attacks, in which Islamic terrorists hijacked and crashed four U.S. airplanes, killing 3,000 Americans.

The death threats Jones alleges he has received are disputable, but the global ire he has drawn is not. Several top U.S. leaders have openly condemned the church, from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who called the plan “regrettable,” to Attorney General Eric Holder, who called the idea “idiotic.” An editorial that ran recently in Dublin’s Irish Times equated the proposal to Nazi book burning.

A Facebook page created by the church to promote the event currently has over 13,000 ‘fans,’ yet it is unclear how many of them actually support the the idea. Locally, the church has been confronted over its plan by government and businesses alike. The fire department in Gainesville, a small college town in the north central part of the state, refused to grant the church a burning permit, stating the open burning of books is a fire hazard and is not allowed. Meanwhile, the bank where Dove has a mortgage loan has demanded that the church immediately repay its balance.