TPMDC Sunday Roundup

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Boehner: I’ll Drop Tax Cut for Rich If I Have To
Appearing on Face The Nation, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) indicated that a compromise on renewal of the Bush tax cuts — to renew only the tax cuts for those making under $250,000, and allow the tax cuts for higher-incomes to expire – could be possible. “I want to do something for all Americans who pay taxes,” Boehner said. “If the only option I have is to vote for some of those tax reductions, I’ll vote for it. But I’ve been making the point now for months that we need to extend all the current rates for all Americans if we want to get our economy going again, and we want to get jobs in America.”

Goolsbee: U.S. Can’t Afford Tax Cuts for High-End Earners
Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Austan Goolsbee indicated the Obama administration’s strong position against renewing the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250,000 per year. “The president strongly believes that … after a decade of astounding squeeze on the middle class that was followed by the worst recession in our lifetime … you cannot afford to raise taxes on the middle class. We should make that permanent,” Goolsbee said. But he also added: “What we cannot afford to do is pass 700 billion additional dollars of tax cuts for the millionaires and billionaires at a time when we are just going to borrow that money.”

Rauf: Moving Muslim Center ‘Will Strengthen The Radicals’
Appearing on This Week, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf said that it would be dangerous to move the planned Muslim community center near Ground Zero in New York: “My major concern with moving it is that the headline in the Muslim world will be Islam is under attack in America, this will strengthen the radicals in the Muslim world, help their recruitment, this will put our people — our soldiers, our troops, our embassies, our citizens — under attack in the Muslim world and we have expanded and given and fueled terrorism.”

Giuliani Blasts Rauf: ‘There’s The Good Imam And The Bad Imam’
Appearing on Meet The Press, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani responded to similar statements from Imam Rauf. “I think that tactic is not the kind of tactic I would have expected from an imam who’s featured as a man of conciliation. You know, I analyzed this imam’s history pretty carefully, and I hate to simplify it, but it’s the only way to do it. There’s the good imam and the bad imam,” said Giuliani. “The good imam is about reconciliation. He’s about being open and transparent about what he’s doing and how he’s doing it. Then there’s the bad imam who said America is an accessory to September 11. America has more Muslim blood on its hands than vice versa. He can’t condemn Hamas as a terrorist group. And he will not be transparent about where he’s getting the money, how he’s getting the money, and has virtually not been open at all about this. And now we have the imam who tells us if doesn’t get his way there could be significant and very dangerous violence. Look, those are very, very strong words, and to enter a sort of a suggestion of a threat into this, I worry about this as the kind of tactics he, he pursues.”

Axelrod: Administration Working To ‘Keep This Recovery Moving In The Right Direction’
Appearing on Meet The Press, senior White House adviser David Axelrod defended the administration’s economic record, and castigated Republicans for obstructionism: “So we’ve done things right along to keep this recovery moving in the right direction. We’ve had eight straight months of, of positive job growth in the private sector. We need to accelerate that pace, and that’s the reason the president has proposed these additional ideas. Whether they–we’re ready to pass them tomorrow, David, if the Republican Party in the Senate allows it, if they pass the small business tax bill. And if they want to move on others, we’re ready to go. If they want to wait until after the election, then we’ll have to wait until after the election.”

Goolsbee: Unemployment To Remain High
Appearing on This Week, Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Austan Goolsbee said that unemployment would stay high: “This recession is the deepest in our lifetimes, the deepest since 1929. If you take the people thrown out of work in the 1982 recession, the 1991 recession, the 2001 recession, not only is this bigger, this is bigger than all of those combined. So more than 8 million people lost their jobs. It’s going to take a significant push on our part and time before that comes down. I don’t anticipate it coming down rapidly.”

Hoyer: ‘We’re Going To Hold The House’
Appearing on State of the Union, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer predicted, “We’re going to hold the House.” However, Hoyer also said that the party may have to abandon some candidates if they fall too far behind: “If there are candidates that are very substantially behind and can’t make it, clearly we will have to make some tough judgments.”

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