The Maine Center for Economic Policy issued the following statement from executive director Garrett Martin in response to President Obama’s State of the Union Address this evening:
“Tonight the President laid out an agenda for prosperity that targets America’s greatest economic asset: a robust, productive middle class. His plan is a firm foundation for bipartisan deliberations ahead. Our economy thrives when the middle class and those aspiring to get there can afford to buy clothes and other consumer goods for themselves and their kids, purchase homes for their families, and invest for college or retirement. The President’s proposal recognizes this by wisely balancing tax credits for childcare, two years of tuition-free community college, and tax cuts for middle income families with modest tax increases on those Americans who have benefited most from the strengthening economic recovery.
“Making sure that working families can afford child care, that they don’t have to choose between keeping their job or caring for a sick child, and that their historic levels of productivity are rewarded with higher wages should be priorities that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle can get behind. This should be true in Washington and here in Maine as well. Similarly, asking the wealthy and corporations that have benefited from historically low taxes and a wide range of loopholes to pay their fair share is a common sense approach that will improve the fairness of our tax code and support investments that will result in a stronger economy and more widely shared prosperity.”
