Some of the economic ideas President Obama proposed in his State of the Union address will be “dead” if they reach Capitol Hill, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in their first-ever joint TV interview.
The top congressional leaders criticized the president’s calls for free community college and minimum wage hikes while highlighting a number of areas where Republicans and Democrats could come together during a 60 Minutes segment to be aired Sunday.
“Why would he want to raise taxes on people?” Boehner said of Obama’s proposal to increase taxes for the wealthy. “There’s no free lunch, and the president wants to raise taxes because he wants to increase Washington spending.”
The Ohio Republican added that such tax hikes are “real dead.”
McConnell dismissed the president’s idea to provide free community college as one that would contribute to an already staggering national debt.
“We added more debt during the Obama years than all the presidents from George Washington down to George Bush,” the Kentucky Republican said. “The last thing we need to do to these young people is add more debt, and giving away free tuition strikes me as something we can’t afford.”
Boehner called proposed increases to the federal minimum wage a “bad idea.”
Obama pushed for wage hikes in last year’s State of the Union, a feat he was unable to accomplish in the 113th Congress. He pitched the idea again in his 2015 address.
But the congressional leaders pointed to tax breaks and trade as areas where compromise could be possible.
“Virtually every Republican in the audience the other night stood up and applauded when the president talked about trade,” McConnell said.
Boehner said the president’s idea to triple the child care tax credit “could be looked at in the overall context of simplifying our tax code and bringing rates down for everyone.”
