Obama Pushes Business Tax Cuts

President Barack Obama reiterated his proposals for cuts in business and individual taxes and called on Republicans and Democrats to work together after the elections.

In his weekly address on Saturday, Obama talked about the tax cut proposals he introduced last month. “We ought to provide continued tax relief for middle class families who have borne the brunt of the recession,” he said. “We ought to allow businesses to defer taxes on the equipment they buy next year. And we ought to make the research and experimentation tax credit bigger and permanent — to spur innovation and foster new products and technologies.”

Obama has been promoting his proposal in recent days for allowing businesses to write off 100 percent of their purchases of equipment through the end of next year (see Obama Calls for Expanding Business Expensing). He also proposed last month to expand the research credit to support about $100 billion over the next 10 years in business research and development.

Obama looked ahead to the midterm elections on Tuesday, and said the two parties need to work together on such proposals, no matter what the election results. “Whatever the outcome on Tuesday, we need to come together to help put people who are still looking for jobs back to work,” he said. “And there are some practical steps we can take right away to promote growth and encourage businesses to hire and expand. These are steps we all should be able to agree on — not Democratic or Republican ideas, but proposals that have traditionally been supported by both parties.”

He also took a shot at Republican congressional leaders, House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, whom he accused of making statements that indicated gridlock in Washington after the election.

“That’s why I found the recent comments by the top two Republican in Congress so troubling,” he said. “The Republican leader of the House actually said that ‘this is not the time for compromise.’ And the Republican leader of the Senate said his main goal after this election is simply to win the next one. I know that we’re in the final days of a campaign. So it’s not surprising that we’re seeing this heated rhetoric. That’s politics. But when the ballots are cast and the voting is done, we need to put this kind of partisanship aside — win, lose, or draw.”