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President Barack Obama (Credit: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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President Barack Obama’s new plan to cut our nation’s deficit by $3 trillion has supporters and denouncers talking online. Today, Obama unveiled his plan, which involved ending the Bush-era tax cuts for couples who make more than $250,000 a year. He also announced the “Buffett Rule,” which would ask those who make $1 million or more a year to pay the same overall tax rate — 35 percent — as the average taxpayer. Right now, investment income is only taxed at 15 percent.
Many supporters are saying that that it is about time Obama started representing the views they elected him before. “Middle-class taxpayers shouldn’t pay a higher tax rate than millionaires and billionaires,” Obama said according to the Washington Post. “I reject the idea that asking a hedge fund manager to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or a teacher is class warfare. I think it’s just the right thing to do.”
Other plans Social Security and Medicare won’t be cut immediately, but in the next few years Obama promised to find $400 billion in savings in Medicare and Medicaid, and raise the eligibility age from 65 to 67.
Republicans are claiming this is pitting one class against the other. “Pitting one group of Americans against another is not leadership,” Boehner said according to FOX News. “The Joint Select Committee is engaged in serious work to tackle a serious problem: the debt crisis that is making it harder to get our economy growing and create more American jobs. Unfortunately, the president has not made a serious contribution to its work today.”
Do you support Obama’s new deficit plan?
