US President Barack Obama Thursday won an endorsement of his 4-trillion-dollar deficit plan from the men who led a bipartisan fiscal commission, amid a building row with Republicans. Obama and other White House officials mounted a strong push to win acceptance of the 12-year-plan laid out by the president on Wednesday, while his foes on Capitol Hill sought to build momentum behind their rival effort.
The president appeared with Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican Alan Simpson in an Oval Office photo-op, and called for both parties to "come together as Americans" to agree a deficit cutting plan. "As they pointed out in their bipartisan effort, it is important that we put everything on the table, we've got to take some tough decisions when it comes to domestic spending," Obama told reporters.
"We've got to look at everything, including our security spending, in order to achieve the goal that we need. "It's important to look at our tax code, and find a way to work together to not only simplify and make the tax system fair, but also that we use it as a tool to help us achieve our deficit targets." Republicans have savaged ideas for higher taxes on the most affluent Americans which are included in Obama's plans for four trillion dollars in deficit spending over the next 12 years.
But Obama said "it's also important, and I think that these gentlemen share that view, that we can't exempt anybody from these efforts." "It's not appropriate for us to ask for sacrifices from everybody except for the two percent of Americans who are doing best."
Simpson and Bowles, the co-chairs of the deficit commission which reported last year were largely complimentary about Obama's plan. Simpson, a former Republican senator, praised Obama's decision to put another former senator, Vice President Joe Biden in charge of negotiations on the plan with key leaders in Congress.
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