WASHINGTON — A combative President Obama praised his new $900 billion tax-cut agreement with Republicans as a “good deal” yesterday — but faced a revolt among members of his own party who fumed at giving the break to the wealthiest Americans.
“My job is to do whatever I can to get this economy moving,” Obama said at a news conference, where he issued a political IOU of sorts by promising to pick up his campaign pledge to end tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans in 2012 — when he runs for re-election.
With former President George W. Bush’s tax cuts set to expire at the end of the month, Obama said he was focused on “making sure tens of millions of hardworking Americans don’t see their paychecks shrink on January 1st.”
Speaking to his party’s liberal wing, Obama said, “I understand the desire for a fight. I am sympathetic to that. But it would be a bad deal for the economy.”
He compared Republicans — who are holding up all other legislation in the last days of a Democratic lame-duck Congress until tax cuts get enacted — to “hostage takers,” while calling his liberal critics “sanctimonious.”
“I think it’s tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers unless the hostage gets harmed . . . In this case, the hostage was the American people, and I was not willing to see them get harmed.”
Obama, eager to quell a potential revolt, dispatched Vice President Joe Biden in an effort to soothe angry Democrats, in a closed-door meeting that Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland described as “rowdy” and “raucous.”
The deal, estimated to cost around $900 billion over two years, extends the expiring Bush tax cuts for that period while establishing a 2 percent temporary payroll-tax cut and extending low-income tax cuts. The deal also includes GOP backing for a 13-month extension for unemployment insurance.
The White House says the overall effect will be to boost the economy, but plenty of Democrats aren’t buying.
“The whole deal is corrupt,” Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) told Biden, said a Dem source familiar with the closed-door meeting.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) warned that he will have a difficult time lining up Democrat votes for Obama’s tax giveaway. “I think we’re going to have to do some more work on it,” he said.
Others, including Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), praised the deal as a “second economic recovery program.”
Conspicuously silent was Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), who had pushed colleagues to draw a line in the sand over tax cuts for those earning more than $1 million, but refused comment yesterday when approached by Post reporters.