President Obama has released a deficit just weeks after releasing a jobs plan. | REUTERS Obama: 'This is not class warfare'

President Barack Obama offered a spirited defense Monday of his plan to slash $3 trillion from the federal deficit in large part by raising taxes on the wealthy.

“This is not class warfare. It’s math,” Obama said. “If we are not willing to ask those who have done extraordinarily well to help America close the deficit … then the logic, the math says everybody else has to do a whole lot more.”


In a feisty appearance from the White House Rose Garden, Obama detailed a proposal that reads more like a blueprint for shoring up his restless Democratic base than a vehicle for reaching across the aisle in search of bipartisan compromise. His tone — incredulous, exasperated and firm — was a notable departure from his usual reluctance to go too hard after the Republicans whom he needs to pass bills through Congress.

His proposal forces the GOP to side with corporations and the wealthy, avoids the most controversial remedies for overhauling Medicare and Social Security, and offers up a populist-sounding “ Buffett Rule,” which would prohibit millionaires from paying a lower tax rate than middle-class Americans.

“Anybody who says we can’t change the tax code to correct that, anyone who signs some pledge to protect every single tax loophole as long as they live, they should be called out,” Obama said. “They should have to defend that unfairness.”

While slicing $3 trillion from the deficit may appeal to Republicans on Capitol Hill, they do not like the way Obama wants to do it. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has already issued his own bottom line for the latest-round of deficit talks: No new taxes.

Obama directly challenged the speaker on Monday, calling for a tax code overhaul that would raise $1.5 trillion in new revenues mostly from high-end earners. This target is almost double the amount that Obama and Boehner agreed to before their “grand bargain” negotiations collapsed in July.

The president said he would veto any plan that cuts Medicare benefits without raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans. And he pounded Boehner for a speech last week, accusing the speaker of a “my way or the highway” approach by ruling out any new revenues as part of a deficit-reduction deal.

“The speaker says we can’t have ‘my way or the highway’ and then basically says ‘my way or the highway,’” Obama said. “That is not smart. It is not right.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) immediately hit back.

“Veto threats, a massive tax hike, phantom savings, and punting on entitlement reform is not a recipe for economic or job growth — or even meaningful deficit reduction,” McConnell said in a statement. “The good news is that the Joint [Select] Committee,” tasked with finding $1.5 trillion in budget savings by Thanksgiving, “is taking this issue far more seriously than the White House.”

Boehner struck a similar note, saying Obama “has not made a serious contribution” to the deficit debate.

“Pitting one group of Americans against another is not leadership,” Boehner said in a statement. “This administration’s insistence on raising taxes on job creators and its reluctance to take the steps necessary to strengthen our entitlement programs are the reasons the president and I were not able to reach an agreement previously, and it is evident today that these barriers remain.”

Responding to pressure from progressives, the president will not seek an increase in the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67, stepping back from a controversial idea he endorsed during his talks with Boehner. Obama had already signaled last week that he would not tackle Social Security in his plan, another shift away from his high-wire talks with Boehner.

Administration officials said the plan isn’t meant to be a legislative compromise, but rather the president’s starting offer for the bipartisan Joint Select Committee.

“What we were talking about with the speaker was designed to get majorities in the House and Senate,” one administration official said. “This is the president’s vision.”

Obama’s plan would slice $248 billion from Medicare and $72 billion from Medicaid, hitting both health care providers and beneficiaries. Those cuts, however, must be balanced by new revenues, Obama said.

“I will not support any plan that puts all the burden for closing our deficit on ordinary Americans,” he said.

Obama detailed five principles on tax reform: lower tax rates, trim “wasteful” loopholes and tax breaks, reduce the deficit by $1.5 trillion, boost job creation and growth, and adhere to the new “Buffett Rule” based on the views of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has famously said that he is taxed at a lower rate than his secretary.

Obama would pick up $800 billion by allowing Bush-era tax cuts to expire for high-end earners and $400 billion by limiting their charitable contributions. He would collect the balance from closing loopholes that benefit oil and gas companies, private jet owners and investment fund managers.

Another $1 trillion in savings would be achieved by winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and about $180 billion from other mandatory programs, according to the White House.

The $3 trillion in savings detailed Monday are in addition to the $1 trillion in cuts agreed to as part of the August debt-ceiling agreement.

Congressional Democrats have said that tax increases must be part of any plan to reduce the deficit.

“I am very encouraged by the president’s focus on the need for tax reform that calls on all Americans to contribute their fair share,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement.

Even before complete details of the president’s proposal emerged Sunday night, the attacks against it as “class warfare” had already begun.

“Class warfare may make for really good politics, but it makes for rotten economics,” House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said on “Fox News Sunday,” adding, “we think this is going in the wrong direction.”