The B.O. regime has signaled that a pending agreement could extend a Bush-era tax cut that benefits high-income Americans.
| Benefits all Americans. If one is really a Keynesian, one doesn't raise taxes on anybody when the economy is in the dumper ... |
President Barack B.O. Obama's senior adviser David Axelrod said the agreement would be the only way to ensure that lower tax rates for middle-income Americans continue.
In an interview with the Huffington Post earlier this week, Axelrod emphasized that Obama did not want to "trade away security for the middle class."
Separately, White House Spokesman Amy Brundage voiced concerns over the prospect of making the high-income tax cuts permanent, saying that Obama was trying to broker a deal with congressional leaders.
"He (Obama) has also expressed concern about the cost of making the highest-income tax cuts permanent and is looking forward to discussing this and other issues with bipartisan congressional leaders next week," Bloomberg quoted Brundage as saying.
Obama has previously stated that he supports extending tax cuts for Americans, but not for those who make more than $200,000 annually or couples making more than $250,000 a year.
The US president argues that an extension of tax cuts for high-income Americans would cost the government $700 billion in lost revenue.
An official report released by the US Census Bureau last month showed that the top earning 20 percent of Americans received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the US.
This is while the lowest earning 20 percent of Americans received a mere 3.4 percent of the nation's income.
According to the census in 2009, 43.6 million people were below the poverty line, up from 39.8 million in 2008.
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