Obama invites CEOs to White House to push for tax increases, postponed spending cuts

President Barack Obama on Wednesday will meet with several establishment CEOs at the White House in what is expected to be a “tense” encounter, as part of his effort to push through a package of immediate tax increases and postponed spending cuts.
Many of the CEOs are part of the “Fix the Debt” campaign, a nonpartisan organization founded by former Wyoming Republican Sen. Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine BowlDebtes. Simpson and Bowles co-chaired Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.
The “Fix the Debt” website does not push either of the two major debt-reduction strategies — government-boosting tax increases or government-shrinking spending cuts.

But the group’s website does tilt towards the more liberal solution, both by suggesting that spending cuts should be postponed and by blaming GOP policies for the debt.
“A credible [debt reduction] plan could help strengthen the recovery by improving confidence and reducing uncertainty, even if [budget] savings don’t start until after the recovery,” reads a statement on the website.
The debt has been boosted by ”increased spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, unpaid for tax cuts, unpaid for stimulus and job creation bills, and the economic downturn,” according to the website.
In contrast, the website does not blame Obama’s big-government policies for the debt problem, even though they have pushed up annual federal spending by roughly $1 trillion above taxes, added $5 trillion to the nation’s debt and boosted welfare spending.
Also, the group’s spokesman — Steve Rattner, Obama’s auto-bailout czar — is publicly pushing for tax increases to curb the nation’s $16 trillion debt.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/13/obama-invites-ceos-to-white-house-to-push-for-tax-increases-postponed-spending-cuts/#ixzz2C6EBcEcI