Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, is upset with President Barack Obama’s reluctance to compromise with Republicans to prevent automatic spending cuts from taking place next year.
Obama says he will let the reductions go ahead if Republicans remain unwilling to raise taxes on the wealthy,
The Hill reports.
“Like a petulant child, [Obama] is insisting his way or the highway,” Hatch said on the floor Wednesday. “We’ve had far too much of that.”
Hatch said the president and congressional Democrats are willing to “drive the country over the fiscal cliff.” The fiscal cliff refers to the tax hikes and spending cuts that will begin next year if Congress and the president don’t act.
Hatch spoke with a poster for the 1991 movie “Thelma & Louise” behind him. In the film’s final scene, the two main characters, played by Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon, drive their car over a mountain.
“It is a political equivalent of a temper tantrum,” Hatch said of Obama. “American voters will have about as much patience for this as they would a similar fit from their children. “American people want a grown-up in the White House, but on tax policy we appear to be dealing with adolescents,” Hatch said.
Senate Democrats have introduced a tax bill that would extend George W. Bush-era tax cuts only for households with income up to $250,000. Obama supports that plan.
Hatch has his own plan that would continue the tax cuts for everyone. It leaves out the earned income tax credit, child tax credit, and opportunity tax credit for college tuition that are in the Democratic bill.
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