Obama, GOP trade barbs in rare face-to-face encounter

Tax credit idea for job creation retooled

Baltimore (ap) — President Barack Obama renewed his call for tax incentives to create jobs Friday, saying a greater effort is needed even though his administration has “stopped the flood of job losses.”

Obama wants to give companies a $5,000 tax credit for each net new worker they hire in 2010. Also, businesses that increase wages or hours for their existing workers in 2010 would be reimbursed for the extra Social Security payroll taxes they would pay.

No company could reap more than $500,000 from the combined benefits, one of several features meant to tailor the program more to small businesses than to large corporations.

House Democrats rejected a similar proposal last month after questioning how it would work. On Friday, some GOP lawmakers called the retooled plan too tepid; Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana described it as “a tax credit which was last promoted by President Jimmy Carter.”

Baltimore ? In a remarkably sharp face-to-face confrontation, President Barack Obama chastised Republican lawmakers Friday for opposing him on taxes, health care and the economic stimulus, while they accused him in turn of brushing off their ideas and driving up the national debt.

The president and GOP House members took turns questioning and sometimes lecturing each other for more than an hour at a Republican gathering in Baltimore. The Republicans agreed to let TV cameras inside, resulting in an extended, point-by-point interchange that was almost unprecedented in U.S. politics, except perhaps during presidential debates.

With voters angry about partisanship and legislative logjams, both sides were eager to demonstrate they were ready to cooperate, resulting in the GOP invitation and Obama’s acceptance. After polite introductions, however, Friday’s exchange showed that Obama and the Republicans remain far apart on key issues, and neither side could resist the chance to challenge and even scold the other.

Obama said Republican lawmakers have attacked his health care overhaul so fiercely, “you’d think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot.” His proposals are mainstream, widely supported ideas, he said, and they deserve some GOP votes in Congress.

“I am not an ideologue,” the president declared.

But Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., pointedly asked Obama: “What should we tell our constituents who know that Republicans have offered positive solutions” for health care, “and yet continue to hear out of the administration that we’ve offered nothing?”

Obama showed little sympathy, disputing Price’s claim that a Republican plan would insure nearly all Americans without raising taxes.

“That’s just not true,” said Obama. He called such claims “boilerplate” meant to score political points.

Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence of Indiana defended Price on the health care proposals. He said a GOP agenda booklet given to Obama at the start of the session “is backed up by precisely the kind of detailed legislation that Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi and your administration have been busy ignoring for 12 months.”

Obama shot back that he had read the Republican proposals and that they promise solutions that can’t be realized.