Obama abandons demand for millionaire tax

Staff Report

President Obama is angering supporters who believe he’s about to make another major concession to Republicans by abandoning his insistence that millionaires pay more in taxes to fund an extension of the payroll tax cut.

“So much for a really good talking point for Democrats in 2012,” wrote progressive blogger Joan McCarter on Daily Kos, lamenting the impending death of the Senate Democrats’ proposal for a surtax on millionaires.

The surtax on people earning more than $1 million was meant to fund a one-year extension of the Social Security payroll tax cut, which would inflate the paychecks of 160 million workers next year, as it has this year.

Obama has been urging Congress for weeks — through a series of speeches in Washington and visits to several battleground states — to extend the payroll tax cut, which expires Dec. 31.

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