Rubio: Obama Has 'Obsession' to Raise Taxes

President Obama is going to make middle-class jobs a big part of his State of the Union Address, but Marco Rubio says the president's approach would backfire. Politico has excerpts of Rubio's Republican rebuttal, to be delivered in English and Spanish, including:

• “The tax increases and the deficit spending you propose will hurt middle-class families. It will cost them their raises. It will cost them their benefits. It may even cost some of them their jobs. ... Mr. President, I don’t oppose your plans because I want to protect the rich. I oppose your plans because I want to protect my neighbors.”

• “Presidents in both parties—from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan—have known that our free-enterprise economy is the source of our middle-class prosperity. But President Obama? He believes it’s the cause of our problems.”
• “If we can get the economy to grow at just 4% a year, it would create millions of middle-class jobs. And it could reduce our deficits by almost $4 trillion dollars over the next decade. Tax increases can’t do this. Raising taxes won’t create private-sector jobs. And there’s no realistic tax increase that could lower our deficits by almost $4 trillion."
• “That’s why I hope the president will abandon his obsession with raising taxes and instead work with us to achieve real growth in our economy."

(More Marco Rubio stories.)