Cantor: Obama should support Bush tax cuts

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 (UPI) -- U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., Saturday urged President Barack Obama to support a one-year across-the-board extension of all Bush-era tax rates.

Cantor said Democratic efforts to raise taxes on wealthier Americans would hurt small businesses and prevent job growth, The Hill reported.

In the GOP's weekly media address, he said the dueling Democratic and Republican proposals over the Bush-era tax rates -- set to expire at the end of the year -- are a "collision of two very different plans for economic growth."

The Democrat-led Senate has passed an extension of the tax rates only for those making up to $250,000 a year, while the Republican-led House voted to extend all Bush-era rates.

"The President sided with Harry Reid and the Democrats, insisting that their plan to raise taxes was the answer for economic growth," Cantor said.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Friday the last thing Americans need "is more uncertainty, more unfairness and higher taxes on working families and small businesses."

"Yet House Republicans continue to stand as the lone roadblock to a middle class tax cut -- preferring to hold tax relief for 100 percent of Americans hostage to extra tax breaks for the top 2 percent," she added.