Boehner warns against tax hikes for rich

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WASHINGTON, May 15 (UPI) -- House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said raising taxes on wealthy Americans to reduce the budget deficit was a bad idea that would hurt the economy.

Boehner said that while all government spending programs should be on the table and open to cuts, the Republicans remained completely opposed to tax increases.

"Everything should be on the table except raising taxes because raising taxes will hurt our economy and hurt our ability to create jobs in our country," Boehner said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Boehner took issue with the idea that the wealthy were not paying enough in taxes and proposed that upscale investors would play a key role in lowering the unemployment rate.

"The top 1 percent of wage earners in the United States pays 40 percent of the income taxes and the top 10 percent of wage earners pay 90 percent of the income taxes," he said. "The people he [President Obama] is talking about taxing are the very people that we expect to reinvest in our economy and to create jobs in our country."