Obama, GOP clash on taxes
Published 10:20 pm Saturday, April 10, 2010
SAN FRANCISCO — The White House and the GOP clashed on taxes in their weekly radio addresses Saturday as a Thursday deadline to file income-tax returns nears.
President Barack Obama said that Americans who have filed their taxes so far have discovered the average refund has risen 10 percent this year to an all-time high of $3,000 because of 2009’s Tax Recovery Act.
“In fact, one-third of the Recovery Act was made up of tax cuts — tax cuts that have already provided more than $160 billion in relief for families and businesses, and nearly $100 billion of that directly into the pockets of working Americans,” the president said.
Obama noted that taxpayers have several possible tax credits at their disposal, including up to $2,500 for students and parents paying for college tuition, up to $8,000 for first-time buyers of homes, and up to $1,500 for home improvements meant to save energy.
In the GOP’s weekly address, Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona focused on Bush tax cuts that are set to expire at year’s end, and the price of recently passed health-care legislation.
“Under current law, unless Congress acts, taxes will rise dramatically on Dec. 31,” Kyl said. “Taxes will increase on families with children, on married couples, on income, on capital gains and dividends, and even after death. It comes to a total of $2 trillion in new taxes over the next 10 years. And that doesn’t include the more than $500 billion in new taxes in the health spending law.”
On job creation, Obama said companies are beginning to hire again as the economy grows, adding that the unemployed Americans are eligible for a 65 percent tax credit to cover health-care costs and that the first $2,400 of unemployment benefits are tax-free.
Kyl said that unemployment has “stubbornly” hovered around 10 percent and that 4 million jobs have been lost since Obama took office. The senator criticized the administration for focusing on “a controversial health spending bill” rather than making job growth a priority.
