At a press conference urging Congress to extend and expand the payroll tax cut as well as unemployment insurance benefits, President Obama pushed back on Republican claims that all tax cuts must be paid for: ‘At the beginning of the decade, Republicans didn’t feel the need to pay for massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans,’ he said. In addition, he pointed out, Republicans in Congress changed the rules at the beginning of this year so that tax cuts don’t have to be paid for.
While Obama agreed he wanted to offset the cuts, he pointed out that he had already cut spending this year, and that further cuts to education, the safety net, or similar programs would be unwise.
