Advertisement

Obama turns tax debate into political football

Share

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- It’s never easy for a candidate to distill wonky debates about tax policy into terms voters can easily understand. Of late, the Obama campaign has borrowed heavily from the master, using former President Clinton’s line about “arithmetic” to make the case that the Romney-Ryan plan doesn’t add up.

But Monday in Columbus, President Obama took a stab at explaining it in terms Ohio State University football fans would understand.

“Imagine the sellout crowd for a Buckeyes’ football game at the Horseshoe,” he began, referring to a stadium with a seating capacity in excess of 100,000.

Advertisement

“Under my opponent’s tax plan, 106 fans at the game would get an average tax cut of $250,000, and about 100,000 fans would have to pay for it,” he said. “And by the way, the ones who would get the tax break are the guys in the box seats.”

PHOTOS: Obama on the campaign trail

The sports analogy came after a weekend in which aides say the president watched quite a bit of football, in addition to receiving briefings on the situation in the Middle East, phoning heads of missions at diplomatic posts in affected nations, and potentially some debate prep.

The president told a crowd of 4,500 at a local park that it was tax breaks targeted to the middle class that were most likely to spur the economy.

“When I cut taxes on middle-class families, why did I do that? Because when you guys have a little more money in your pocket, what happens?” he asked. Spend it, was the crowd’s response.

On the other hand, “if you give a tax break to a billionaire, you can only buy so many yachts,” he said.

Advertisement

Obama’s comments come as both campaigns return their focus to an economic argument, after a week in which foreign policy overshadowed what had been the campaign’s dominant issue.

The president also repeated the goals he set for a second term in his speech at the Democratic National Convention: creating manufacturing jobs, improving education, increased reliance on green energy, bringing down the deficit and turning “the page on a decade of war.”

“I need those four years to get all that done,” he said.

INTERACTIVE: Battleground states map

Follow Politics Now on Twitter and Facebook

michael.memoli@latimes.com

Twitter: @mikememoli

Advertisement
Advertisement