Axelrod: Obama may delay tax rollback for the wealthy

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David Axelrod told Fox News’s Chris Wallace that Barack Obama may choose to let president Bush’s high-income tax cuts expire instead of immediately repealing them. Axelrod has been selected to be Obama’s senior White House advisor.

The promise to roll back Bush’s tax cuts for the most wealthy American’s was a key promise of Barack Obama’s campaign.

Partial transcript

WALLACE: It’s been suggested that one way that Mr. Obama could reassure the markets is to announce that he is not going to raise any taxes, even on the wealthy and corporations, during a recession.

Is that something that he is considering announcing, postponing that part of this tax plan?

AXELROD: Well, as you know, Chris, the aggregate effect of his plan would be a net tax cut. He’s committed to getting middle-class tax relief in the pipeline quickly, and there’s no doubt that we’re going to have to make some hard decisions in order to pay for the things we need.

And whether it is through repeal of those tax cuts for the very wealthiest or whether we simply allow it to — allow those cuts to expire in 2010, we’re going to accomplish that because we have to. We have to make some hard choices.

WALLACE: But you’re making it sound as if one consideration would be to let them expire, which means that the taxes would go up on the wealthy and corporations in 2011 rather than calling for it right away so it would happen in 2009.

AXELROD: Well, as I said, you know, those considerations will be made.

This video is from Fox News’s Fox News Sunday, broadcast Nov. 23, 2008.

Download video via RawReplay.com