Building on momentum and saying “the fight is beginning to turn our way,” President Obama on Tuesday urged voters to keep pressuring Congress to pass the payroll tax cut as time runs out on an extension.
Speaking at the White House, Obama used an airplane analogy when describing the economy’s recent uptick but acknowledged "we're not at cruising altitude yet.”
“The last thing we need is for Washington to stand in our way,” Obama said. “And first and foremost that means Washington shouldn’t hike taxes on working Americans right now. That’s the wrong thing to do. But that’s exactly what’s going to happen at the end of this month, in a couple of weeks, if Congress doesn’t do something about it.”
Obama’s remarks come a day after House GOP leaders did an about-face, arriving at the decision that they needed to support the payroll tax extension without demanding that spending cuts pay for it. The shift shows Republicans were worried about repeating the defeat they suffered in December when they hesitated before agreeing to extend the tax cut for two months.
For more on Obama's speech, click here.
