Obama urges middle-class tax cut, draws contrast with GOP aiding the wealthy

Even if we disagree on the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, we all agree that no American should pay more taxes on the first $250,000 of their income. So let's at least agree to do what we all agree on. That's what compromise is all about. Let's not hold the vast majority of Americans and our entire economy hostage while we debate the merits of another tax cut for the wealthy. Let's skip the unnecessary drama, the needless delays and all the partisan posturing and let's just do the right thing for the people who sent us here to serve.

This morning President Barack Obama directly took on Mitt Romney and his party's beloved "trickle down" economics in his weekly address, pushing hard for extension of middle-class tax cuts and roundly criticizing the idea of letting the so-called "job creators" off the hook.

We're still paying for trillions of dollars in tax cuts that benefitted the wealthiest Americans more than anyone else; tax cuts that didn't lead to the rise in wages and middle class jobs that we were promised; and that helped take us from record surpluses to record deficits.

The last thing we need right now is more top-down economics.

Decision time is coming, he said, and the two different approaches are on a collision course. Let the wealthy off the hook'or let the middle class have some relief while still funding necessary programs?

Under my plan, 98% of American families won't see their income taxes go up at all. But the other 2% of Americans will have to pay a little more in taxes on anything they make over $250,000. In other words, the wealthiest few Americans will go back to the income tax rates they were paying under Bill Clinton. And if you remember, that was when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest budget surplus in history, and millionaires were doing pretty well.

Then he brought up the deficit boogeyman, saying "boo!" to the "fiscally conservative" party: "The only place we disagree is whether we keep giving tax cuts to the wealthiest 2% of Americans. Republicans in Washington want more of those tax cuts. With the deficit we have, I don't think we can afford them."

The full transcript can be found beneath the fold and on the White House website.