Like his chief opponent in the Republican presidential nomination hunt, Rick Perry is focusing his response to President Obama’s deficit reduction plan on the tax increases for the super-rich, not on the spending cuts.
“President Obama’s plan is a bait and switch that offers more than a trillion dollars in higher taxes for a promise of temporary tax relief,” Perry said in a statement Monday. “The president penalizes investment when it is needed most, discourages charitable giving and doubles down on a failed government stimulus strategy.”
The tax hike stuff will be likely a major component of Republican pushback on the plan, which began well before it was formally announced and will continue for a long while longer. The $320 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid Obama described — which put him onto one of Perry’s favorite topics, entitlement reform, didn’t get mentioned by Perry in his short statement after the end of the speech.
Here’s the whole thing:
“President Obama’s plan is a bait and switch that offers more than a trillion dollars in higher taxes for a promise of temporary tax relief. The president penalizes investment when it is needed most, discourages charitable giving and doubles down on a failed government stimulus strategy.“Worst of all, the Obama plan fails to provide the certainty employers need to create jobs and the spending and deficit reduction our economy needs.”
