Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) — who had pushed hard for letting tax cuts lapse for millionaires at year’s end – has agreed to back President Barack Obama’s plan to impose hikes on families earning more than $250,000, quashing what might have been an election-year Democratic food fight.
Obama’s team quietly pressed top Hill Democrats last month to back the plan in a series of White House meetings people close to the situation tell POLITICO.
Obama announced Monday, the first weekday following Friday’s anemic jobs report, that he planned to present House and Senate Republicans with a plan to eliminate Bush-era tax cuts for upper income Americans, which he claims would spare all but the top two percent of all earners.
“[Schumer] still believes that the millionaire strategy is the best one. But he believes more that party unity at this time is even more important,” a person close to Schumer told POLITICO, who emphasized that any daylight between the White House and Hill Democrats was tactical, not philosophical.
“He’s going to be a team player for the president.”
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