Obama to Take GOP to Task on Economy   09/10 05:47

   Striving to gain the upper hand on a crucial political issue, President 
Barack Obama is faulting Republicans for refusing to help him turn around the 
sluggish economy or support some proposed new tax breaks for businesses that 
the GOP has backed in the past.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Striving to gain the upper hand on a crucial political 
issue, President Barack Obama is faulting Republicans for refusing to help him 
turn around the sluggish economy or support some proposed new tax breaks for 
businesses that the GOP has backed in the past.

   Obama has argued that case many times recently. But on Friday he takes it to 
an audience of millions, including many who will vote in November's decisive 
congressional elections, during a nationally televised news conference from the 
White House East Room.

   Before taking questions, Obama was to open the session with a statement on 
the economy and the stakes in the elections and, according to a White House 
official, announce that he has chosen one of his longtime economic advisers, 
Austan Goolsbee, to be the chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers. The 
official spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity because the formal 
announcement had not been made.

   Goolsbee, 41, a University of Chicago professor of economics, was Obama's 
senior economic adviser during the 2008 presidential campaign. He already has 
been confirmed to the council by the Senate and will need no further 
confirmation. He replaces Christina Romer, who left the administration last 
week to return to teaching at the University of California, Berkeley.

   With Democrats in danger of losing control of the House, Obama is trying to 
convince voters that they have a choice between going back to GOP policies that 
led to the economic crisis or going forward with policies he says will grow the 
economy over the long term.

   Feeling pressure to show he is doing everything possible to repair the 
economy, Obama this week unveiled a tax-and-spend package that would expand and 
permanently extend a tax credit for research and development that lapsed in 
2009, let businesses write off 100 percent of their investments in equipment 
and plants through 2011, and spend $50 billion immediately on highway, rail and 
airport projects.

   House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio has offered an alternative 
plan: freezing tax rates for two years and cutting back government spending to 
2008 levels.

   Obama also wants to let taxes rise next year on the highest wage earners 
while keeping existing tax cuts for families with annual incomes of $250,000 or 
less and individuals making $200,000 a year maximum. Republicans insist on 
keeping the lower tax rates for higher incomes, arguing that doing so would 
help small businesses too. Obama argues that's a financial burden the country 
can't afford to bear.

   By law, taxes will rise for everyone next year unless Congress acts.

   But even some of Obama's own Democrats and his former budget director, Peter 
Orszag, have suggested a compromise that would temporarily extend all the tax 
cuts that were enacted in 2001 and 2003 under President George W. Bush, to 
leave more money in consumers' pockets and give the economy some breathing 
room, before the tax cuts are allowed to expire entirely in a year or two.

   Obama campaigned for president on a promise not to raise taxes on the middle 
class. He insisted Thursday during a speech in Cleveland that tax cuts for that 
income group must not be held "hostage any longer."

   At the news conference, Obama also is expected to challenge Republicans to 
allow a Senate vote on a bill that calls for about $12 billion in tax breaks 
for small businesses. It also includes a $30 billion fund to encourage banks to 
lend to small business. Republicans have likened the bill to the unpopular 
bailout of the financial industry.

   Obama has blamed Republicans for stalling the bill. The measure is on the 
agenda when the Senate returns next week. The House has already passed many of 
the provisions in the Senate bill.

   Friday's news conference will be just the second time this year that Obama 
has met alone with reporters at the White House.

   He has appeared before the White House press corps several times with 
visiting foreign leaders. Obama last held a solo White House news conference in 
May to discuss the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.


(KA)