After going AWOL during much of Washington's shutdown showdown, President Barack Obama this week will propose tax increases as a way to close the federal government's gaping budget deficit.
Dusting off a plan that failed to pass last year's lame-duck Democratic Congress, Obama reportedly will renew his call to boost taxes on anyone earning more than $250,000.
"People like him, as he'll say, who've been very fortunate in life, have the ability to pay a little bit more," a White House aide told the Wall Street Journal.
Obama is scheduled to unveil the details of his plan Wednesday. Other components reportedly include reductions in entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, as well as unspecified changes to Social Security.
But any talk of taxes is likely to capture the headlines and complicate the tenuous budget deal agreed to by the House and Senate late Friday. That one-week stopgap measure, which averted a government shutdown, expires Thursday.
The short-term measure calls for $39 billion in budget cuts, and Republicans are demanding larger, ongoing reductions in future funding plans.
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who last week unveiled a 10-year budget containing $5 trillion in budget cuts, skewered any talk of hiking taxes.
"If you go down the tax increase path you're sacrificing the economy," Ryan said on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday.
Meantime, another deadline looms over the national debt ceiling. The administration and some Wall Street analysts warn that if the $14 trillion lid is not lifted by Congress, the U.S. government will lurch into default by summer.
Instead of continuing to raise the debt limit, an action urged by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Republicans are demanding a strict regimen of immediate budget cuts.
All of which puts Democrats and the Republican-controlled House on yet another collision course.
Washington has a spending problem, not a tax problem," said Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta.
"Raising taxes on hard-working Americans and small businesses to pay for Washingtons out-of-control spending binge would not only be irresponsible, it would cost our workers jobs they cannot afford to lose. Rather than hike taxes, we need to cut up the governments credit cards and get spending under control.
Rep. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, was equally unimpressed by Obama's move.
The presidents budget proposed $1.5 trillion in higher taxes and now hes going back to the drawing board to call for even more taxes. Raising taxes on families and small businesses will drive even more jobs overseas and cost Americans more.
Polls show Americans are skeptical of Obama's tax-and-spend agenda.
A Rasmussen survey conducted during the shutdown showdown found that a majority of voters continue to favor tax cuts and spending reductions as the best tonic for an ailing economy.
"Most voters want a government that offers fewer services and lower taxes," said pollster Scott Rasmussen.
In Florida, the news is even worse for Obama.
The latest Mason Dixon poll showed a 56 percent disapproval rate among Floridians. Significantly, only 34 percent of independents approve of the job he is doing.
Obama figures that a populist call for taxing "the wealthy" will buttress his left-wing base, which was shaken by the recent congressional budget deal that he signed off on.
But as evidenced by last year's failed tax gambit, such "progressive" increases hit job-creating small business owners, who generally file tax returns as personal "S" corporations.
It's also unclear how Obama's latest incarnation of a tax hike would do much more than dent a budget deficit that's at $1.6 trillion and climbing.
Tea party groups and supply-side economists contend that any increased tax revenues are simply fool's gold -- sapping the economy and slowing any recovery.
Senate President Mike Haridopolos, who is running for U.S. Senate, announced Monday that he will sponsor a state resolution calling for a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The lack of a requirement to balance the federal budget means Congress needs additional willpower to end deficit spending, and its clear that some will never attempt to do so -- unless mandated to do so, Haridopolos said in a statement.
Some conservatives, including the Wall Street Journal editorial page, like the balanced-budget concept, but doubt its value unless coupled with strict controls on government outlays.
Without enforceable spending limits, a balanced-budget amendment "would easily become a lever for Democrats to push for higher taxes," the Journal editorialized Monday.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who Haridopolos is challenging, would "probably" vote for Obama's tax hike, said Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin.
"The senator is generally opposed to tax increases. He's a fiscal conservative. [But] he has voted in the recent past to approve a higher tax rate for those earning over $250,000," McLaughlin said, adding, "the devil is in the details."
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Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.
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