President Barack Obama returns to the Sunshine State today for the start of a two-day campaign tour to talk tax cuts and debt reduction.
He will stop in Jacksonville and West Palm Beach today and then head to Fort Myers and Orlando on Friday, according to his campaign.
On taxes, Obama will repeat his call for extending "middle-class" tax breaks for families making less than $250,000, or $200,000 for individuals ? basically everyone but the top 2 percent of Americans. Republican Mitt Romney supports extending the cuts for all Americans.
"He will discuss his plan to restore middle-class security by paying down our debt in a balanced way that ensures everyone pays their fair share and still invests in the things we need to create jobs and grow our economy over the long term," said a statement issued by Obama's campaign earlier this week.
He's also going to talk about reducing the nation's $16 trillion debt by making the case that taxing those earning more than $250,000 a year will push the debt down over the next decade.
Most economists believe that a mix of tax hikes and spending cuts are needed to cut the debt significantly. A special commission Obama appointed soon after taking office in January 2009 recommended such an approach, but Obama and congressional leaders from both parties largely ignored the panel's advice.
With Florida up for grabs in November, Obama and Romney are spending millions of dollars in television ads and making frequent campaign stops around the state.
A Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald/Bay News 9 poll released last week showed 46 percent of likely Florida voters backing Obama, 45 percent supporting Romney and 2 percent were behind Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. Only 7 percent are undecided.
In a conference call with reporters Wednesday, Democratic National Committee chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Ben LaBolt, an Obama campaign spokesman, dismissed recent polls.
They expect the race in the nation's biggest battleground state to go down to the wire, as it has in every presidential contest in the past two decades.
"We have no expectation that either candidate will get to the point of 10 points up or down,'' LaBolt said.
"We think this will be close and competitive right up until the election and that's why we're building the largest grass roots campaign in history," said Wasserman Schultz.
That may explain why Obama's campaign trip to Florida will include Jacksonville, where he lost narrowly in 2008, and to Lee and Collier counties, where he lost badly before winning the state with a 2.5 percentage point margin.
The president plans to drop by Century Village of West Palm Beach, the senior citizen retirement haven that remains a reliable but shrinking stronghold of Democratic senior citizens.
election results wiz khalifa taylor allderdice mixtape reggie wayne taylor allderdice vincent jackson vicki gunvalson pierre garcon
No comments:
Post a Comment