By Kate Andersen Brower - Dec 1, 2011 7:03 AM GMT+0700
President Barack Obama said the U.S. economy would suffer a “massive blow” if Congress lets a temporary payroll tax cut expire at the end of the year.
Speaking at a high school in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Obama said Republican lawmakers face a choice: “Are you going to cut taxes for the middle class and those who are trying to get into the middle class, or are you going to protect massive tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires?”
Lawmakers will debate in coming weeks how to extend the payroll tax cut for employees, with Republicans and Democrats differing over whether to offset the revenue loss by raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans or cutting spending more deeply.
In the working class, former manufacturing hub in northeastern Pennsylvania, Obama said “there’s a sense of deep frustration among people who’ve done the right thing but don’t see that hard work and that responsibility pay off.”
“We’re fighting to make things right again,” he said.
The Scranton visit took Obama before a key constituency of blue-collar voters in a longtime Democratic congressional district that flipped to a Republican in the 2010 election.
Electoral Indicator
“People have looked to Scranton to see what middle-class, blue-collar America is thinking,” said Jean Harris, head of the political science department at the University of Scranton. “And if he can get here early and get people talking about him in a positive way, they’re probably hoping it’s going to snowball.”
From Scranton, Obama flew to New York for a trio of fundraisers, the first at the home of American Jewish Congress chairman and member of the executive committee of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Jack Rosen. About 30 people were invited, with ticket prices starting at $10,000 each, according to a Democratic Party official who wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss the matter.
Rosen, who also is the chairman of the American Council for World Jewry, a Jewish advocacy group, said in introducing Obama that the president was “amongst friends.”
The Republican candidates seeking their party’s presidential nomination have been critical of Obama over U.S. relations with Israel. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said in September that the president had thrown Israel “under the bus and undermined its negotiating position.”
Israel as Ally
Obama told the group, “We don’t compromise when it comes to Israel’s security” and that “no ally is more important” to the U.S. than Israel.
The president will end the day at a dinner with approximately 45 people who paid $35,800 per person and a holiday-themed party at the Sheraton Hotel with approximately 500 people who paid $1,000 each.
The campaign aimed to raise at least $2.4 million at the three events, the party official said. Obama reported raising $88 million through Sept. 30, exceeding his record fundraising pace of four years ago. By comparison, Romney, the top fundraiser among the Republicans seeking their party’s nomination, reported taking in $33.6 million.
Since officially kicking off his re-election campaign in April, Obama has focused on states that he won in 2008 and needs to hold to get re-elected. Among them is Pennsylvania, which Obama has visited 16 times since he took office, including six over the last seven months. Vice President Joe Biden, who grew up in Scranton, also has visited the area.
Democratic Advantages
Pennsylvania should be friendly territory for Obama. There are about four registered Democrats for every three Republicans there, and Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1 in Lackawanna County, of which Scranton is the hub, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State.
In the last five elections, Pennsylvania voters have supported the Democratic nominee for president, including giving Obama 54.5 percent of the vote in 2008.
Still, Republicans took Pennsylvania’s governorship, a U.S. Senate seat and five U.S. House seats from Democrats in the 2010 elections.
One of those House seats went to Republican Representative Lou Barletta, who defeated 13-term incumbent Democrat Paul Kanjorski in 2010 and now represents Scranton. Barletta said he doesn’t think Obama can take the area for granted.
Vote Margins
“In 2008, the president won here in northeastern Pennsylvania by 15 points; however, I won by 10 points in 2010, so you can draw your own conclusion as to how the president’s doing here in northeastern Pennsylvania,” he said in an interview.
Rick Schraeder, president of the local electrical workers union, said he voted for Obama in 2008 and will again in 2012. Still, he said “any one of” the Republican candidates seeking their party’s nomination could pose a challenge to Obama.
“We can’t take anything for granted, we’re going to have to work hard to get the people in there that are going to support the middle class,” he said.
Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate was 8.1 percent in October, below the national average of 9 percent that month. The metropolitan area that includes Scranton had an 8.8 percent unemployment rate in September, according to Labor Department data compiled by Bloomberg.
Pennsylvania’s economic health improved 1.9 percent during the year ended June 30, 15th-best among 50 states and Washington, D.C., according to the Bloomberg Economic Evaluation of States Index, which uses data on real estate, jobs, taxes and stock prices to gauge growth.
Schraeder is urging his union’s approximately 500 members to “wake up” and vote for the president in 2012.
“A lot of our workers realize now that we’re down to it; it’s not a special interest item anymore, it’s not a gun, it’s not an abortion, it’s not a gay thing,” said Schraeder, 61. “We need to put food on our tables, we need a livable wage.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Kate Andersen Brower in Scranton, Pennsylvania, at
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net
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