President Obama stressed the importance of eliminating tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans during a news conference held Wednesday in the East Room of the White House, challenging Republicans to make sacrifices as part of a deal to raise the debt limit.
Obama alleged that Democrats have taken on “sacred cows” by accepting spending cuts and showing willingness to analyze entitlement programs. Congressional Republicans, however, have insisted that deficit-reduction negotiations be limited strictly to spending cuts.
“If everybody else is willing to take on their sacred cows and do tough things in order to achieve the goal of real deficit reduction, then I think it would be hard for Republicans to stand there and say, ‘The tax break for corporate jets is sufficiently important that we’re not willing to come to the table and get a deal done,’ or, ‘We’re so concerned about protecting oil and gas subsidies for oil companies that are making money hand over fist, that’s the reason we’re not going to come to a deal,’” Obama said in his opening statement.
Wednesday’s news conference was held just hours after the International Monetary Fund warned that failing to increase the debt limit would send severe shockwaves through the economy and global financial markets.
“The revenue we’re talking about isn’t coming out of the pockets of middle-class families that are struggling, it’s coming out of folks who are doing extraordinarily well and who are enjoying the lowest tax rates since before I was born,” Obama added.