President Barack Obama urged middle-class families who are in danger of seeing their taxes go up next year to begin using Twitter and other forms of communication to urge lawmakers to extend tax cuts for the middle class.
Barack Obama
Obama said Wednesday they should use a new Twitter hashtag, #My2K, to explain what they would do with the additional $2,200 that a family of four is estimated to pay next year if the current tax rates expire for taxpayers earning less than $250,000 a year.
“Today, I’m asking Congress to listen to the people who sent us here to serve,” he said. “I’m asking Americans all across the country to make your voice heard. Tell members of Congress what a $2,000 tax hike would mean to you. Call your members of Congress, write them an email, post it on their Facebook walls. You can tweet it using the hashtag My2K. Not Y2K. My2K. We figured that would make it a little easier to remember.”
Obama met with a group of small business owners Tuesday to discuss the impending tax hikes and other aspects of the so-called fiscal cliff that threatens to plunge the economy into recession next year unless Democrats and Republicans in Congress can agree on a tax cut extension and budget cuts (see Obama Meets Small Biz Leaders to Discuss Fiscal Cliff).
On Wednesday, Obama plans to sit down with the leaders of major financial firms such as Deloitte LLP CEO Joe Echevarria and Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein, as well as the chief executives of major corporations such as Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer, Home Depot chairman and CEO Frank Blake, and Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent.
“I’m sitting down with CEOs; I’m sitting down with labor leaders; I’m talking to leaders in Congress,” said Obama. “I am ready and able and willing and excited to go ahead and get this issue resolved in a bipartisan fashion so that American families, American businesses have some certainty going into next year. And we can do it in a balanced and fair way, but our first job is to make sure that taxes on middle-class families don't go up. And since we all theoretically agree on that, we should go ahead and get that done. If we get that done, a lot of the other stuff is going to be a lot easier.”
Obama plans to go on a campaign-style trip later this week to Pennsylvania and other parts of the country to promote his tax policy. "Even the wealthiest Americans would still get a tax cut on the first $250,000 of their income," he pointed out. "So it's not like folks who make more than $250,000 aren't getting a tax break, too. They're getting a tax break on the first $250,000 just like everybody else."
Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Republican leaders met Wednesday with former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, who co-chaired the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction commission, and the “Fix the Debt” coalition of business leaders to discuss a balanced framework for averting the fiscal cliff and solving our debt crisis.
“Going over the ‘fiscal cliff’ would hurt our economy and cost jobs, and people in both parties agree we need a ‘balanced approach’ to deal with our debt,” said Boehner in a statement after the meeting. “One thing Republicans won’t be party to is a deal that protects big businesses and preserves special-interest tax breaks while raising tax rates on the small businesses we’re counting on to create jobs. To show we’re serious about reaching a bipartisan agreement, we have offered to accept some new revenues, provided the revenue comes from tax reform and is accompanied by significant spending cuts. Without spending cuts and entitlement reform, it is impossible to address our country’s debt crisis. We put revenue on the table. Now, it’s important for President Obama and congressional Democrats to tell the American people what spending cuts they're willing to make, and I’m hopeful the ‘Fix the Debt’ coalition will call on them to do so. Republicans are eager to forge a bipartisan agreement that can pass both chambers of Congress. The framework we’ve outlined is the responsible path, and it is consistent with the ‘balanced’ approach the White House says it wants.”
6 Comments
In reply to Nostro49: one can only say that anger and jealousy permeates every word in your acidic comments. 3% own 90% of the wealth? what Democrat came up with that absurdity? If that were true, Libs such as Ophrey Winfrey, Bruce Springstein, John Kerry, George Soros, Addrianna Huffington, all the liberal the Hollywood crowd, .... ad infanitum ... probably own 90% of the 90%. If you get rich by confiscating the property of others, it is stealing! Especially if it is done through class warfare. Most of those who have taken the time, and given the effort, to educate themselves, thus qualifying them obtain high paying jobs, have sacrificed much to achieve what they have. Look at the Socialistic governments that have failed. Those who think like you are destroying our Republic. It is wasteful and illogical spending, not lack of revenue that is the problem. It is time to admit it.
Posted by: mcameron@ddccpa.com | November 29, 2012 1:14 PM
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Gee, it's always and article like this that really brings out the Boneheads. These comments are amazing----why don't you and your Republican Fossils go back under your rocks?
$2200 bucks matters to people, stupid! Say it--you know it!---The Rich 3% own 90% of the wealth of this country. Time To Pay Up! Your Pontiff Reagan even raised taxes.
One of these days before we have an American Spring like the Arab Spring, the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement are going to realize they both want the same thing -- less control by the monopolies, the Big Corporations, Big Government, The Big Rich.
People have got to have the feeling that life will get better. It's that or it's people turning over your rocks.
Posted by: nostromo49 | November 29, 2012 12:44 PM
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So 2K will make a difference today how about years from now for funding the the much talked about shortage in the SS system. They took 2% from the FICA program 2 years ago with the PROMISE that it was a temporary cut, well 2 years are over put the 2% back onto the FICA program. Quit using this as political nonsense for a president who does not want to sit down speak with congress. The whole idea that President Bush's tax program was suppose to end 4 years ago yet it still lives don't these programs ever die? We are still paying for President Carter programs because they will not die. As for the estate tax please simply solution live forever.
Posted by: lavalos | November 29, 2012 10:52 AM
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Tweet Tweet Tweet
WTH
Mr "President" please get to work! You are paid over 250,000 per year and as far as I can see you haven't earned any of it! You haven't produced a budget in the last 4 years (part of your job description). It's me wonder you say that YOU should be asked to pay more since you didn't work for what you were paid. For you its like making a refund for unearned wages. But for those who work and that means produce, manage, plan and get results working 14 to 16 hours a day, skipping vacations, and taking risks with their already highly taxed resources, increased taxes is a penalty! That makes the productive begin to work toward other goals. How to reduce risk, serve smaller markets with LESS employees and lower overheads. In other words, if you raise their taxes the incentive to be productive (which is why they hire workers) is taken away.
Besides, people "vote" with their dollars. If they see something they want or an activity they support they either spend money there or contribute to it. If people who are productive see progress through government programs checks would be in the mail. Take note! Before you force share money out of the pockets of those who it belongs to, do your job! Before you ask people to give government even more money to WASTE, fix it. after all, that was the job you got, now DO IT! And don't ask for or take more until you are effective (Achieving the goals of the programs in effect now) with huge amounts you now have available.
Posted by: SullivanAcctg | November 29, 2012 10:23 AM
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Mr. President, my $2k is going to be used to pay the increases in my health care costs caused by Obamacare, as well as the increased food costs caused by inflation which is the result of the continued quantitative easing. We have got to cut the entitlement programs by making people accountable through drug tests and requiring able people to work. Stop the runaway spending! That is the ONLY thing that is going to get our nation back on the road to recovery. We can't tax our way to prosperity!!!
Posted by: shalena1 | November 29, 2012 9:21 AM
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What a joke. I would let the $2000 go to know what he did with the rest of our money. This is a man child, not a leader.
People who make over $250,000 want to know what President Obama is going to do with their additional tax dollars also. My guess is that will use it to pay out more child tax credits to illegal immigrants. Unemployment to people who are looking for that ideal job that does not exist anymore or maybe earned income credits.
Posted by: Nancy123 | November 29, 2012 9:05 AM
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