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Ex-Google exec: 'Mr President raise my taxes'

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, Sept 26, 2011 (AFP) -- A rich former Google executive pleaded with Barack Obama to raise his taxes Monday, boosting the US leader's push to get well off Americans to bankroll his $447 billion jobs plan.

Obama stormed through the American west on a three-day tour devoted to hammering Republicans and piling up cash for his 2012 reelection bid, which is overshadowed by 9.1 percent unemployment and a wobbling economy.

Former Google brand manager Doug Edwards became an instant media sensation when he joined billionaire investor Warren Buffett in calling for those who had done well in America to do more to help the struggling masses.

"I don't have a job, (I) worked for a small startup down the street here that did quite well," Edwards told Obama, at a Silicon Valley town-hall event on the jobs package sponsored by the LinkedIn social network.

"I am unemployed by choice." "My question is -- would you please raise my taxes?" Edwards said.

Edwards later told reporters that he had never met Obama, but was invited to the town hall event by a friend who had links to the Democratic Party.

He was at Google during heady expansion years between 1999 and 2005 and said he believed that Americans who could afford it should pay more money in capital gains taxes to help the less well off, and programs like infrastructure improvements.

Obama, who answered an hour of questions from a decidedly friendly crowd, told Edwards the two of them had become successful because "somebody invested in our education. Somebody built schools."

The president was in the middle of a five-city, three-day swing through the American west, mixing events pushing his jobs plan with big money fundraisers for his 2012 reelection effort.

He has proposed partly financing his jobs plan by raising taxes on the most wealthy Americans and closing corporate tax loopholes.

But Republicans counter that raising taxes in grim economic times would hamper growth and accuse the president of waging "class warfare" for political gain.

On Sunday, Obama warned that Republicans who have blocked his initiatives in Congress since grabbing control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 election, would "cripple" America if let back into the White House.

Obama is seeking to repair his own political prospects, dragged down by the economic malaise and a string of bruising battles with Republicans on Capitol Hill, 14 months before he faces disgruntled voters.

His new populist tone comes after repeated attempts to cooperate with Republicans to pass measures to heal the economy, which have dismayed his core political supporters.

On Sunday, as part of a swing through Washington state, California, and swing state Colorado, Obama warned his followers to brace for a "tough" election fight next year.

"This is going to be especially hard because a lot of people are discouraged and a lot of people are disillusioned," Obama said in Seattle.

"I'm determined because there's too much at stake.

"The alternative I think is an approach to government that would fundamentally cripple America in meeting the challenges of the 21st century."

Later, in San Jose, California, the president portrayed Republican presidential candidates as extreme and suggested their conservative audiences were not reflective of mainstream America.

"Has anyone been watching the debates lately?" he asked.

"You've got a governor whose state is on fire denying climate change,"

Obama said, referring to Texas Governor Rick Perry.

"You've got audiences cheering at the prospect of somebody dying because they don't have health care, and booing a service member in Iraq because they are gay."

A string of fundraisers are meanwhile aimed at raising millions of dollars for his campaign account ahead of a key interim fundraising deadline at the end of the month.

Many observers feel that Obama's jobs bill has little chance of passing Congress, at least in recognizable form, as even some Democrats in the Senate oppose part of it.

But his senior advisor David Plouffe said Sunday he believed the bill would get a vote. "I think it's got a very good chance," Plouffe said on ABC's "This Week" program.

"This has tax cuts for every small business and every worker, rehiring teachers, modernizing our schools, helping rebuild our infrastructure."

 

<한글 기사>

구글 前직원 "대통령님, 내 세금을 올려주세요"

실리콘밸리 가상 타운홀미팅서 오바마에 요청

"대통령님, 내 세금을 올려주시겠습니까?"

버락 오바마 미국 대통령이 비즈니스 소셜네트워킹사이트 링크트인과 함께 마련 한 '가상 타운홀 미팅'이 26일 오전(현지시간) 미국 실리콘밸리에서 진행되던 중 한 남성이 오바마 대통령을 상대로 이 같은 질문을 해 참석자들과 현지 언론의 관심이 집중됐다.

행사 장소의 방청석 맨 뒷줄에 앉아있다가 오바마 대통령에 의해 질문자로 선택 된 이 남성은 자리에서 마이크를 넘겨받고 일어선 후 실리콘밸리에 있는 신생기업에 서 일하다 지금은 "자진해서" 실업상태에 있다고 설명하고, 은퇴해서 편안하게 살 만큼 성공했다고 자신을 소개했다.

그는 이어 "저의 질문은 '내 세금을 올려주시겠습니까' 입니다"라며 "저를 지금 의 위치까지 올 수 있게 해준 펠 그랜츠(Pell Grant, 연방정부의 무상장학금), 사회 간접자본, 직업훈련프로그램 등에 투자를 지속하는 나라에 살고 싶다"고 주장, 방청 객들의 박수를 받았다.

그는 오바마 대통령이 "신생기업이 뭐냐"고 물은 데 대해 "검색 엔진이다"고 답 함으로써 구글 출신임을 시사하자 방청객들이 또한 차례 환호했다. 그는 행사 이후 구글에서 1999년부터 2005년까지 브랜드 담당 직원으로 근무한 더글러스 에드워드로 확인됐다.

오바마는 그의 질문에 힘입어 "종종 세금논쟁은 계급 간 다툼으로 이해되지만 미국의 성공은 위대한 아이디어를 가지고 자신을 꿈을 쫓고, 그 과정에서 돈을 버는 사람들에게 약속된 것"고 전제한 뒤 "하지만 당신이 말한 것처럼 누군가가 교육시스템에 투자하고 학교를 짓고 훌륭한 대학들을 만들어냈기 때문에 가능한 것"이라고 강조했다.

오바마 대통령은 "성공한 사람들은 혼자 힘으로 성공한 것이 아니라는 것을 기억해야 한다"고 덧붙였다.

에드워드는 행사가 끝난 뒤 기자들에게 이전에 오바마를 만난 적이 없으며, 이번 행사는 민주당과 관계가 있는 친구의 초대를 받았다고 말했다. (연합뉴스)

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