SO, I blew a gasket on this tax cut issue. Seems the president read my blog and put out this statement while still in Seoul..... :-)
Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- President Barack Obama declared Friday that his "number one priority" is preserving tax cuts for the middle class, and sharply denied that comments by his senior adviser David Axelrod suggest that his administration is about to cave in to Republicans who also want to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.
"That is the wrong interpretation because I haven't had a conversation with Democratic and Republican leaders," Obama said of a Huffington Post article suggesting that in advance of negotiations with lawmakers next week, the White House has calculated that giving in on tax cuts for the rich is the only way to get the middle class cuts extended too.
"Here's the right interpretation -- I want to make sure that taxes don't go up for middle class families starting on January 1st," Obama said at a news conference at the conclusion of the G-20 Summit here. "That is my number one priority for those families and for our economy. I also believe that it would be fiscally irresponsible for us to permanently extend the high income tax cuts. I think that would be a mistake, particularly when we've got our Republican friends saying that their number 1 priority is making sure that we are dealing with our debt and our deficit."
Obama would not tip his hand on the discussions coming when Congress returns to work for a lame-duck session next week.
I'm not apologizing just yet, I'll wait til President Obama gets home and has his meeting with the Democrats and the Republicans on these tax cuts. I'm having a trust issue and still fear a caving is about to happen. What really upsets me more than the whole idea the Democrats will cave and extend the tax cuts for the rich, is the hypocrisy from the GOP and their hysteria about the national debt. How they can demand the tax cuts be permanent for wealthy Americans who don't need them, and then ask for cuts in middleclass programs because we can't afford all this spending, is unbelievable! It makes me crazy!
