Obama Signals Compromise on Bush Tax Cuts

Faced with the prospect of no deal on the Bush tax cuts resulting in a middle-class tax hike on Jan. 1, President Obama is signaling a willingness to extend them across the board, reports USA Today. "We've got to find consensus here even if it's not 100% of what I want or what the Republicans want," he said in a speech today. "There’s no reason that ordinary Americans should see their taxes go up next year.”

The burgeoning federal deficit "can't afford" to permanently extend the tax cuts to the rich, the president said, but he looks ready to do so temporarily—though Politico notes that the White House has hinted that such a compromise must be tied to the extension of unemployment insurance and other stimuli in the 2009 Recovery Act. Congressional Democrats are meeting today with Obama and Joe Biden to discuss the issue. (More Barack Obama stories.)