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Washington: Flush with
victory, a combative President Barack Obama made clear he would
push hard to increase taxes on the rich, fiercely defended his UN
ambassador and insisted the Petraeus affair had not caused a
security breach.
Laying out his second term agenda at his first post-election press
conference Wednesday he made clear his approach to negotiations
over the fiscal cliff - the impending tax rises and automatic
spending cuts that would go into effect Jan 1 if no deal is
reached and push the country into another recession.
"When it comes to the top 2 percent, what I'm not going to do is
to extend further a tax cut for folks who don't need it, which
would cost close to $1 trillion," Obama said, referring to the tax
cuts made by former president George Bush that apply to income
over $200,000.
"And it's very difficult to see how you make up that $1 trillion
-- if we're serious about deficit reduction -- just by closing
loopholes and deductions."
His starting position will be for a broad $4 trillion
deficit-reduction plan that includes $1.6 trillion in new revenue,
White House spokesman Jay Carney said Tuesday. The basis for it is
Obama's 2013 budget proposal from last February.
Asked about the Petraeus affair, Obama declined to join
congressional voices calling for an investigation into why the FBI
did not notify the White House and other political leaders sooner
about the investigation into the affair that led to the former CIA
Director David Petraeus' downfall.
"I am withholding judgment with respect to how the entire process
surrounding Gen. Petraeus came up," Obama said. "We don't have all
the information yet, but I want to say I have a lot of confidence
generally in the FBI. So I'm going to wait and see."
Obama said he agreed with Petraeus' decision to resign after
acknowledging an affair, but praised his service to the country.
"From my perspective, at least, he has provided this country an
extraordinary service," Obama said. He also said he had seen no
evidence of any potentially damaging breach in national security
stemming from the affair.
"I have no evidence at this point from what I've seen that
classified information was disclosed that in any way would have
had a negative impact on our national security," Obama said.
Fiercely defending the US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice for her
handling of the Benghazi affair, Obama called out Republican
Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain for their "outrageous"
comments that they would block her if she is nominated for
secretary of state.
"If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after
someone they should go after me," Obama said.
"When they go after the UN ambassador apparently because they
think she's an easy target, then they've got a problem with me,"
he said.
Earlier Wednesday, Graham and McCain said they would use
parliamentary means to hold up her nomination, should it be made,
over her characterization of the deadly September attack on the US
diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)
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