obama hits the road to tout a tax cut plan republicans seem to like [View All]

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http://www.nationofchange.org/obama-hits-road-tout-tax-cut-plan-republicans-seem-1322663676

Pres­i­dent Barack Obama jets to Scran­ton, Pa., on Wednes­day to ramp up pres­sure on Con­gress to ex­tend and per­haps ex­pand a pay­roll tax cut for an­other year — a move that Sen­ate Re­pub­li­cans sug­gested Tues­day could hap­pen, at least the ex­ten­sion.

Last year, Obama and Con­gress agreed to cut the pay­roll tax paid by work­ers for So­cial Se­cu­rity by 2 per­cent­age points, to 4.2 per­cent. Obama now wants to ex­tend that an­other year — and even ex­pand it so that work­ers would pay only 3.1 per­cent tax on their wages up to $106,800. If Con­gress doesn't act how­ever, the 2-point tax cut ends Dec. 31, ef­fec­tively rais­ing taxes on work­ers.

The tax cut ex­ten­sion is a major part of Obama's $447 bil­lion job cre­ation pack­age, and White House of­fi­cials said he plans to cham­pion it ag­gres­sively in the few weeks that Con­gress has re­main­ing until it re­cesses for Christ­mas.

"If Con­gress re­fuses to act — then mid­dle-class fam­i­lies are going to get hit with a tax in­crease at the worst pos­si­ble time," Obama said last week in Man­ches­ter, N.H. "The ques­tion they'll have to an­swer when they get back from Thanks­giv­ing is this: Are they re­ally will­ing to break their oath to never raise taxes, and raise taxes on the mid­dle class just to play pol­i­tics?"