WASHINGTON — President Obama set the table for new talks on the fiscal cliff with a brash reminder to Republicans: He won the election.
And that means the GOP must compromise on boosting taxes on the rich, Obama said.
“If there was one thing that everybody understood was a big difference between myself and Mr. [Mitt] Romney, it was, when it comes to how we reduce our deficit, I argued for a balanced, responsible approach,” Obama said at a White House press conference.
“And part of that included making sure that the wealthiest Americans pay a little bit more.
“I think every voter out there understood that was an important debate, and the majority of voters agreed with me.”
Obama added, “By the way, more voters agreed with me on this issue than voted for me. So, we’ve got a clear majority of the American people who recognize, if we’re going to be serious about deficit reduction, we’ve got to do it in a balanced way.”
Although Obama caved in his first term and allowed the Bush tax cuts to be extended, he assured the country he won’t do it again for the two top income-tax brackets.
The Bush cuts are set to expire at the end of the year, and taxes would go up for all brackets if a new deal isn’t struck.
“This was a one-time proposition. And, you know what I had told leaders privately as well as publicly, is that we cannot afford to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy,” Obama said, in his first full-blown press conference since March.
The White House is adamant on letting tax rates revert to Clinton-era levels for couples earning more than $250,000 per year.
But Obama also dropped in a few overtures to Republicans, who have signaled since the election that they would be open to new “revenue” through reform of the tax code — while maintaining their own firm opposition to any rate hike.
“I think that there are loopholes that can be closed, and we should look at how we can make the process of deductions, the filing process, easier, simpler,” Obama said.
“I’m open to compromise and open to new ideas,” Obama said., as long as the tax code maintains “progressivity.”
He also called the debt problem — and avoiding the year-end fiscal cliff of $700 billion in automatic tax hikes and across-the-board spending cuts — “solvable.”
“But when it comes to the top 2 percent, what I’m not going to do is to extend further a tax cut for folks who don’t need it, which would cost close to a trillion dollars,” he said.
He said he wanted a “big deal — a comprehensive deal,” after the administration floated its opening position of $1.6 trillion in new revenue.
The president repeated his call for the House to act on Senate-passed legislation to extend what he calls the middle class tax cuts — but the idea is a nonstarter with GOP leaders who don’t want to give away their leverage.
Some GOP lawmakers are starting to suggest that going over the cliff — with a rate hike and defense and discretionary cuts that analysts say could jam the recovery – is better than agreeing to the president’s terms.
“If we can’t get a fair deal, then we have no deal,” said Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC).
Additional reporting by S.A. Miller and Gerry Shields