White House: No Veto Will be Needed Over Bush Tax Cuts
CBS
The White House says it is confident Congress can find the votes this year to pass legislation extending the Bush tax cuts that does not include an extension of those cuts for the wealthiest Americans, something Republicans are calling for.
They are so confident, in fact, that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said today there is no need for the president to consider vetoing any potential bill that would give in to the Republicans' preferences.
The Bush tax cuts are set to expire at the end of the year, and Mr. Obama has strongly urged Congress to extend them for all Americans, except for individuals making more than $200,000 or households making more than $250,000. Allowing the tax cuts to expire for the wealthiest 2 or 3 percent of Americans would save the country $700 billion, the president argues.
Republicans, meanwhile, are calling for a temporary expansion of all the tax cuts. Mr. Obama has blasted the GOP for holding the middle class tax cut extension "hostage."
In spite of his strong language, Mr. Obama this week danced around the question of whether he would veto a bill from Congress that would temporarily expand all of the tax cuts.
In an interview with ABC that aired today, Mr. Obama simply said, "You can't have Republicans running on fiscal discipline that we're gonna reduce our deficit, that the debt's out of control, and then borrow tens, hundreds of billions of dollars to give tax cuts to people who don't need them."
Later this afternoon, Gibbs reiterated that point to reporters: "You can't be for cutting spending and then add $700 billion to the deficit," he said.
When pressed on whether the president would wield his veto pen against a full extension, Gibbs said, "I don't think legislation's going to come to the president's desk that he would need to veto."
He added, "I think a majority of those in Congress believe that we should, as the president does, extend tax cuts for the middle class and let the tax cuts for the wealthiest among us that we can't afford expire."
Republicans argue that a full extension is necessary in order to give small businesses more confidence. Democrats, however, maintain that very few small businesses would be impacted by the expiration of tax cuts for the wealthy.
Some, such as Peter Orszag, Mr. Obama's former Director of the Office of Management and Budget, have suggested that Democrats may need to compromise and pass a temporary full extension of the cuts in order to get enough votes to pass anything at all.
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You only have to pay taxes on your net income, not your gross (as a sole proprietor).
Having said that, it's pretty clear that both parties are being influenced by campaign contributors. I don't know the solution to this problem, but I don't foresee prudent government until this is addressed.
One poster pointed out that the Democrats are scared and BHO probably doesn't have the guts to veto the tax-break rollback. I hope he's wrong, but it wouldn't shock me if he's right.
It's people like you who are too stupid to see what liberals do that even give him a chance to do this to our country!
Are you so interested in punishing someone who is more successful than you, that you would hurt your country in an attempt to do it... Or is it that you just want someone else to pay for everything?
As long as our government continues the reckless spending and unprecedented meddling with businesses, we cannot expect real long term growth.
The Congress and current Administration have put the country on a course of reckless government spending that has mortgaged the future of all Americans especially future generations. The only way to fix this long term structural problem is to create a pro-growth atmosphere for business. To do this we must reduce taxes NOW. How many different taxes does a business or individual pay on a regular basis? We must eliminate number and complexity of all these taxes and reduce the tax burden.
We also need to end the micro-management of business and the economy. Until we GREATLY reduce the tax burden on business and consumers and remove the senseless regulations that accomplish little in relation to the cost they impose, our future is bleak.
REMEMBER IN November...VOTE THEM OUT!!!
It is not the lower and middle income people who create jobs. The more we tax the people who create jobs the less jobs that will be created. The current Administration and Congress do not understand that. In effect the current Adminstration and Congress is hurting the people they say they are helping.
REMEMBER IN November...VOTE THEM OUT!!!
We need to get them out of office before they do even more harm to our economy.
Right I will vote against every republican who begrudges the money we have received from our government since President Obama took office
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Well stated!
The real problem is not that we need more taxes for Washington; instead, we have an out of control bunch of irresponsible people in Washington spending hundreds of $billions more than the nation has. Actually, this year Washington has given us a record breaking $1.47 trillion deficit. Close to 20% of the nation's budget goes to pay interest alone on the national debt. The crazy spending has to stop. The progressive leadership currently in charge of Washington is running this nation into the ground economically. The are spending tomorrow's money on goodies for today, and they are robbing the United States of it's future. The wild spending has to stop, increases in taxation has to stop, and we must reduce the federal government to a manageable size. We are headed in the wrong direction. We must vote out the leadership in Washington, and replace them with responsible people.
1978 : 78
2005 : over 800