President Obama brought his message about the fiscal cliff to a toy manufacturer in Montgomery County Friday. The visit is an attempt to leverage public opinion to get his way on a deal with Congressional Republicans.
The president says he’s hopeful that, come January first, the country won’t wake up to more austere budgets and higher tax rates across the board. But that’s not stopping him from asking people to tweet their members of Congress to come up with a deal soon.
Republicans say they’d like to extend all of the Bush-era tax cuts for another year. Mr. Obama wants to extend the cuts for all but the country’s top two percent of wage earners.
“It’s not acceptable to me and I don’t think it’s acceptable to you for just a handful of Republicans in Congress to hold middle class tax cuts hostage simply because they don’t want tax rates on upper income folks to go up,” said the President.
Mr. Obama spoke after touring the Rodon Group manufacturing facility, which makes K’NEX, and meeting with some of its workers. His visit comes the day after his plan to avert the fiscal cliff was outlined to Congressional leaders.
House Speaker John Boehner said the president's plan wouldn’t serve the economy well, but that he’s still committed to negotiating a way to avoid tax rate hikes.
