The rich paying more in taxes 'coincides with Jesus' teaching,' Obama said. Obama: Jesus would tax the rich

President Barack Obama on Thursday tied his proposal to raise taxes on wealthy Americans to his faith, telling leaders gathered for the National Prayer Breakfast that Jesus’s teachings have shaped that conclusion.

The rich should pay more not only because “I actually think that is going to make economic sense, but for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that ‘for unto whom much is given, much shall be required,’” Obama said at the Washington Hilton, delivering remarks at an annual event that every president has attended since Dwight D. Eisenhower.


“We can all benefit from turning to our Creator, listening to him,” Obama said. “Avoiding phony religiosity. … This is especially important right now when we’re facing some big challenges as a nation.”

Obama infused his remarks on spirituality with a populist message of economic fairness, echoing rhetoric he unveiled in December in Osawatomie, Kan., and returned to in his State of the Union address last week. Without countering his Republican presidential opponents head on, Obama offered a contrast to Mitt Romney’s positions on class and wealth.

“When I talk about our financial institutions playing by the same rules as folks on Main Street, when I talk about making sure insurance companies aren’t discriminating against those who are already sick or making sure that unscrupulous lenders aren’t taking advantage of the most vulnerable among us,” Obama said, “I do so because I genuinely believe it will make the economy stronger for everybody, but I also do it because I know far too many neighbors in our country have been hurt and treated unfairly over the last few years. And I believe in God’s command to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself.’”

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and Democrats have lambasted Romney for saying Wednesday that he’s “not interested in the very poor” because they have a “safety net.” Romney has said his comments were taken out of context, but his opponents have portrayed the multimillionaire as out of touch with most Americans’ economic realities.

Obama said Thursday that religious teachings support “caring for the poor and those in need.”

Those values have “always made this country great — when we live up to them; when we don’t just give lip service to them; when we don’t just talk about them one day a year. And they’re the ones that have defined my own faith journey,” he said.

“I talk about shared responsibility … because I genuinely believe in a time when many folks are struggling, at a time we have enormous deficits, it’s hard for me to ask seniors on a fixed income, or young people with student loans, or middle-class families who can barely pay the bills to shoulder the burden alone,” Obama added.

This year’s breakfast came as the president faces a backlash from the Catholic Church and other Christian groups. In January, the administration announced that religious employers, including hospitals and universities, would not be exempted from the health care law’s requirement that employer health plans eliminate out-of-pocket fees for contraceptives.

Though Obama didn’t speak about that decision, he emphasized that his decisions on policy issues are driven by his faith. He said he does not limit his values to “personal moments of prayer or private conversations with pastors or friends” but instead tries “imperfectly … to make sure those values motivate me as one leader of this great nation.”

The president paid tribute to Rev. Billy Graham, the 93-year-old evangelical leader who has advised presidents since Harry Truman. Before Obama left a meeting with Graham a few years ago, the preacher prayed for him. When Graham finished, Obama said, “I felt the urge to pray for him. I didn’t really know what to say. What do you pray for when it comes to the man who has prayed for so many? But like that verse in Romans, the Holy Spirit interceded when I didn’t know quite what to say.”

“And so I prayed — briefly, but I prayed from the heart. I don’t have the intellectual capacity or the lung capacity of some of my great preacher friends here that have prayed for a long time,” he said to laughter. “But I prayed. And we ended with an embrace and a warm goodbye.” Since then, Obama added, “I have fallen on my knees with great regularity … asking God for guidance not just in my personal life and my Christian walk, but in the life of this nation and in the values that hold us together and keep us strong.”

Obama first attended the breakfast, which is led by members of the House and Senate, when he was serving as Illinois’s junior senator. He said Thursday that it “is always an opportunity I’ve cherished,” a chance to step back from being “caught up in the noise and rancor that often passes as politics today.”

“It is God who is infallible and not us,” Obama said later. “Michelle reminds me of this often.”