President Barack Obama said on Monday he wants anyone making more than $250,000 a year to go back to the tax rates of the Bill Clinton era.
During that time, 23 million jobs were created, Obama told the crowd at the Herman Park Pavilion in Boone on Monday.
"And, we had the biggest budget surplus in history and the millionaires did pretty good, too," he said to a crowd of about 2,200 people.
His Boone visit was the second planned stop on a three-day tour of the state in which the President planned to discuss his plan to bolster economic security of the middle class. His words were often drowned out by cheers and applause from the crowd. People shouted "We can do it," "We got your back," and "Four More Years!"
After Obama's 30 minute speech he and his entourage planned to swing through the Iowa State Fair, following a earlier today.
Obama said he plans to build the economy from the middle class up, not from the top down, and has already cut taxes for an average family by $3,600, which he promised when running in 2007. He said Monday that he wouldn't raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 a year, about 98 percent of the population.
Since Mitt Romney announced Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate, Obama has called their economic plan “trickle-down fairy dust."
He said the same in Boone Monday. Romney wants to cut regulations and taxes for the wealthy Obama said.
"They tried to sell us that trickle-down fairy dust before. It didn't work then and it will not work now," he said.
Obama said more tax cuts for the wealthy isn't what the country needs.
"We need tax relief for middle class families," Obama said to loud cheers.
Mitt Romney's tax plan would increase taxes on middle-class Americans by as much as $2,000 annually, according to independent analysis of his proposal.
Obama said Romney's $5 trillion tax cut is equal to eliminating the $500 billion annual defense budget for 10 years.
Obama will take his middle-class economics message to Oskaloosa, Marshalltown and Waterloo on Tuesday and finally to Dubuque and Davenport on Wednesday. First Lady Michelle Obama plans to join him on the final day.
professor Christopher Larimer said Obama has the advantage when it comes to voter perception of his relatability and personal appeal, but Romney has the advantage in voter perception when it comes to the economy.
However, Story County Democrat Chair Jan Bauer, of Ames, said she feels that Obama saved the country from a second Great Depression.
“I don't think anyone knows how close we were to financial collapse,” said.
Disabled veteran and said neither party is to blame for today's economic distress.
“Technology has taken some companies to a different place,” Langham said. “That's not a Republican or a Democrat thing. It's just a business thing."
But Story County Republican Chair seems to side with Larimer, saying last week that Romney is what the economy needs.
“Romney has been a CEO of a company. He knows how taxes and regulations affect business' ability to hire and grow,” Adams said.
Obama told the crowd Monday that Romney's campaign would spend more money than they had ever seen and basically repeat the same commercial. They would say that the economy is not where it should be and that it's all Obama's fault he told the crowd.
"They are not right," an audience member screamed.
Obama stopped to agree before saying that Romney and Ryan will repeat that message because they don't have a plan to create jobs or grow the economy.
"I got that plan and we can make it work. ... If you guys get involved we can't lose," Obama said.
After the speech, Bauer who watched from the front row said she believes that voters are just as energized as in 2008.
“People were waiting out in the hot sun for 90 minutes for a bus, a couple people collapsed, but look at this room it is rocking.”
If Mr Obama has already cut taxes for the average family by $3600 ( is this for 4 years, or per year ??? .... we need clarification ), then - if the Clinton era was about raising taxes, I suppose he thinks raising everyones taxes ( like the Obamacare plan will do ) will get us back into prosperity. I still don't get the logic there. One more thing ..... if the leaders in Washington are having trouble agreeing on the Bush era tax cuts, how is throwing another idea ( obstacle ) out in front of them going to help ? Try this interesting math problem if you haven't yet already : Assume our debt levels out at $16 trillion then we begin immediately to pay it off at the rate of $1000 per second. How long will it take us to get to zero again ( assuming zero accrued interest ) ? The answer will surprise you. Even worse if you factor in the interest.
Why did you cut $700 billion from Medicare? Even as he talks Medicare on the campaign trail, the president has not explained why he robbed Medicare—and the seniors who depend on it—to bankroll Obamacare.
(Congressional Budget Office )says the law would reduce the deficit."
So there's your answer, I guess. I'm not voting for Obama (I'm to the left of him) but talking about four years of failure is silly, Jim. Osama bin Laden, for one, would probably not characterize these four years the same.
Medicare is worth saving, and in fact, it's worth expanding it so it covers all the uninsured.
Honestly, I'm not too concerned with savings right now--Keynsian 101 here, government spending can drive an economy out of a recession by providing jobs, thereby putting money back into the hands of folks who will spend it--the working classes. Giving money to the owner classes hasn't worked. We've been steadily decreasing their contributions (via taxes) for a long time now. Why aren't they "creating jobs" as the rhetoric says they should be? At what point does their refusal to create these jobs become a hostage situation? I don't think they're job creators at all. The working classes create jobs by having money to spend, driving up aggregate demand.
If you can't attack the idea, attack the man, right?
This is a huge oversimplification. During the robber baron era, when government intervention was very low, were the constant boom and bust cycles caused by the absence of government? The causes of the Great Depression were complex and nuanced. There were several failures, some of which can be laid at the feet of policymakers, but many that were absolutely failures of the private sector. Attempting to paint all modern economic crises as products of governance is oversimplified and hardly stands up to scrutiny. It's not self-evident that the government is the sole cause of these woes, and it's not even convincing that they are the large part of them--it would be EXTREMELY CONVENIENT for bankers to be able to throw their hands up and claim they had no responsibility for their overleveraged, underfunded liabilities, their gaming of the LIBOR rates, the enormously irresponsible CDO market, and their failure to properly manage home loan documentation--but it's just not so. You're trying to set up an explanation where major systemic failures in our financial system have no generative causation in those same systems--it's facile and nakedly partisan. The answers are much more complex than you'd like them to be, and until you can start addressing them as products of both private sector and governance, you'll never get anywhere.
The European problem is actually really complicated, and involves both the political and economic consequences of trying to share one currency between several different countries that then experience a financial banking crisis.
But that it was the main cause of the Great Depression and our recent financial crisis? You're going to give Wall Street a total pass on both of those?
1) Because the "Euro" is a "Blended Rate" Germany benefits greatly by the loser Peripheral Countries. Why, without them the equivalent Deutschmark would be well above 2.00. So they are stuck with the Euro. 2) Germany in its desire to export within the Euro Market extended credit to Peripheral Countries. That Credit is now worthless. 3) SO if Germany left the Euro its Bank would ALL go under. Not so complex at all.
Conversation works best when we all keep calm and cool headed.
Here's a few reasons why I appreciate the Affordable Healthcare Act: Insurance Companies Can’t Deny Coverage to Women Women Have a Choice of Doctor Women Can Receive Preventive Care Without Copays Women Pay Lower Health Care Costs Health plans that cover children can no longer exclude, limit or deny coverage to your child (under age 19) based on a pre-existing condition If your plan covers children, you can now add or keep your children on your health insurance policy until they turn 26 Help for Family Members on Medicare-The gap in drug coverage known as the “donut hole” is being closed, reducing seniors’ out-of-pocket costs. In addition, people on Medicare may receive recommended preventive care like mammograms and colonoscopies for free. It's not perfect, but it's a start to evening the playing field of receiving quality health care.
As for the rest of your examples---well, respectfully, it's a hard trail of logic to follow. Again, the AHA isn't perfect but it was the best that could be agreed on while all the shouting was going on via the Tea Party folks, etc. Single payer would be best.
1. Tax poor & working people but not the rich; 2. Encourage wages in the U.S. to fall to third world levels; 3. Pass trade laws that make it easy for companies to send jobs overseas; 4. Pass laws that enable only insurance companies to control who gets health care (including seniors) and who doesn't; 5. Replace public education with out of pocket private schools and home schooling; 6. Refuse to invest in crumbling public infrastructure such as highways, bridges, and sewer systems; 7. Pass laws that weaken regulations and enable companies to pollute the environment; 8. Pass laws that enable gas and oil production and prices to be controlled by a few large companies; Make sure that there is no longer any research or work on alternative energy sources; Keep defense spending high to protect non domestic oil production; 9. Repress rights for women and minorities and repress voting participation; 10. Divide the American people on cultural issues (religion, sexual orientation, gun rights, etc); 11. Instill fear in the American public through manufactured crises and created "boogeymen". Then attack political opponents by claiming to be more "patriotic" and the better keeper of "American Values" than they. 12. Make it impossible for literally millions of ELIGIBLE voters to cast their ballots, which is flagrant vote tampering and corruption. Can YOU afford to support these guys? We can't. We're an average American working family.
And, I can tell from your comments you are an Obama supporter, so just wait until you see the "rest of the story" with the O'care issue and the huge taxes that are tagged to that program.