And here's this from WaPo:
Democratic activists Thursday sharply criticized White House officials after a published report indicated that President Obama is likely to back a temporary extension of tax cuts for households with income over $250,000 a year.
In an interview with the Huffington Post, top Obama adviser David Axelrod said: "We have to deal with the world as we find it," in noting that the White House might compromise with the GOP on the issue. He said that White House officials have long opposed a permanent extension of the tax cuts on upper-income Americans. However, Obama aides also have repeatedly said that they have not ruled out backing a temporary extension of those cuts as part of a compromise with Republicans.
Both parties want to keep the tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 for households with income below $250,000 a year. But the GOP wants all the cuts extended permanently, while Obama says the cuts for income over $250,000 do little to improve the economy and would increase the deficit.
Liberal groups cast Axelrod's comments as official capitulation on the issue, even as White House aides emphasized that his position was not new.
"Sign our petition telling President Obama that Americans want him to fight the Bush tax cuts for millionaires - and that Democrats will keep losing if he keeps caving," the Progressive Campaign Change Committee, a liberal group, told its members in an e-mail.
Republicans said that they still want to make all the tax cuts permanent, including those for income over $250,000 a year. In response to the controversy, Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio), said that Republicans hoped the White House would "show leadership by convincing Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi to stop these tax hikes permanently in the upcoming lame-duck session."
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