Margaret Talev and Steven Thomma
President Barack Obama, followed by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, slides past the pocket door to the briefing room as he walks out to begin his news conference at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Dec., 7, 2010. Washington -- President Barack Obama worked Tuesday to sell a sweeping tax cut agreement to skeptical Democrats, arguing that he got the best deal he could from congressional Republicans and vowing to fight them again in two years when it expires.
In so doing, he cast himself squarely in the middle of American politics, lashing out at the GOP for insisting on extending tax cuts for the wealthy, while also ripping liberals who pushed him to reject compromise with Republicans even if it means letting tax cuts for the middle class expire Dec. 31.
"My No. 1 priority is to do what's right for the American people, for jobs and for economic growth," he said at a hastily called White House news conference.
Obama used the news conference to try to sell the deal to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for two years on all incomes. He had wanted to make the tax cuts permanent for all incomes of less than $200,000 a year -- $250,000 for families -- and to let them expire for all incomes above that amount.
But he said that Republicans, with their ability to block any deal in the Senate, opposed any extension unless it included higher incomes.
"It's tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers," he said. "Unless the hostages get harmed . . . The hostage was the American people. I was not willing to see them get harmed."
While some liberals urged him to fight on, he said that would have hurt the economy too much, as well as too many individual families, including 2 million Americans whose unemployment benefits also would have run out as a consequence.
By forcing the Republicans to accept an extension of jobless benefits for the unemployed, and adding a one-year reduction in the payroll tax, he said the overall package would help the economy.
"I know there are some who preferred a fight," he added, but said a long fight that risked higher taxes in the short term "might have been good politics. But it would have been bad for the economy."
Instead, he said, he'll fight another day.
"I'm as opposed to the high-end tax cuts as I have been . . . I will fight to end them," he said. "We're going to keep on having this debate."
Before Obama spoke, liberal Democrats were in an uproar. Rep. Peter Welch, Democrat of Vermont, circulated a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, telling Obama, "Don't back down."
Ohio Democrats including Reps. Tim Ryan of Niles and Betty Sutton of Copley Township expressed disappointment with the package. Sutton said she supports helping lower and middle-class families, but continues to oppose "the deficit-busting bonus tax cut for millionaires and billionaires that economists tell us would fail to create jobs or help our economy."
"This deal is a sellout of the middle class," Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown said on CNN last night. "I think the president could have done a better deal."
While Cleveland Republican Sen. George Voinovich has pledged to vote against the measure because it will increase the budget deficit, Bainbridge Township GOP Rep. Steve LaTourette, like most Republicans, takes a more favorable view.
"The compromise is a positive development because it signals that there's the potential of working with the president on important matters, and chalking up some accomplishments for the American people," LaTourette said. "Americans can have certainty their taxes won't be hiked, and those who are unemployed will have certainty that they'll have benefits for more than a year."
"I think the vast majority of members of the republican caucus to the U.S. Senate feel that this is a step in the right direction, an important step to take for the american people," said Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Obama said he simply couldn't win his quest to end tax cuts for the wealthy against unified opposition holding millions hostage against a Jan. 1 deadline.
"On the Republican side, this is their holy grail . . . this seems to be their central economic doctrine," he said. "We can't get my preferred option through the Senate right now."