Obama Highlights Benefits Of College Tax Credit

WASHINGTON — Calling education an "economic imperative," President Barack Obama on Wednesday asked Congress to make permanent a $2,500 college tuition tax credit that is scheduled to expire at the end of the year.

Obama earlier this year asked Congress to make the American Opportunity Tax Credit permanent. The request was part of the budget plan Obama sent to Capitol Hill, but lawmakers took no action on it.

Obama said Wednesday that this new tax credit – it was part of the $814 billion economic stimulus bill he signed shortly after taking office in 2009 – would help middle-class families afford to invest in their children's future.

"I am calling on Congress to make this tax credit permanent so it's worth up to $10,000 for four years of college because we've got to make sure that in good times or bad, our families can invest in their children's future and in the future of our country," Obama said in the White House Rose Garden.

He was joined there by three families that are using the tax credit to help send their children to college.

The tax credit is available only for the 2009 and 2010 tax years. Making it permanent means families could claim it during all four years of college, for a maximum of $10,000 per student.

The pitch was Obama's latest election-season appeal to college students, a voting bloc he has been courting in the run-up to the Nov. 2 elections, where Democrats are expected to fare poorly. A new Associated Press-mtvU poll finds that college students have cooled in their support for Obama.

Obama has appeared at campus rallies in Wisconsin and Maryland, and planned a third such appearance at Ohio State University on Sunday. He also answered questions during a webcast town hall Tuesday night at George Washington University and was scheduled to take part Thursday in a youth town hall being broadcast live on MTV, BET and other cable networks.

In his Rose Garden remarks, Obama highlighted steps his administration is taking to improve education "from the cradle to the classroom" and charged that providing a quality education would be more difficult under spending cuts proposed by Republicans.

"There's an educational arms race taking place around the world right now," Obama said, naming China, Germany, India and South Korea. "Cutting back on education would amount to unilateral disarmament. We can't afford to do that."

He also said "offering our children a world-class education isn't just a moral obligation, it's an economic imperative."

A new Treasury Department analysis says 12.5 million students and families used the credit last year, receiving an average credit of about $1,700. The tax credit is also refundable, and some 4.5 million people collected an average tax refund of $800 last year, the report said.

Comments

[tnlcallen]

07:19 PM on 10/14/2010

I am one of the Americans who took the tax credit last year. It was definitely one thing I agree with the President on. Education is the gateway out of poverty, and we should be pushing to educate our children. As a side note on taxes, there is one thing I never understood about the child tax credit. It ends once your child turns 17. Nerver understood why.

[Scentedflower]

01:12 PM on 10/13/2010

Change - a positive one is progress, incremental, continuous and hard work.

[madkey]

12:16 PM on 10/13/2010

The Democrats are not successful because they don't go to the route of the problem. For example, the Marco Rubio, Gov Chris, and cong. Meeks. Rubio is totally against healthcare which he said during the debate he would repeal it and would not have voted for it because it cuts medicare and premiums have gone up. Meeks should have argued the fact that healthcare is paid for by loop holes that were benefits to Health care insures that Republicans are against. Meeks should have also argued that Rubio is claiming that Healthcare Reform cost 500 Billion along with cuts to medicare but he's all for 780 Billion dollars so that the Bush tax cuts are extended. Why didn't Meeks attack him on the Bush tax cuts are the reason why he handed Obama a 1.4 trillion dollar deficits along with 2 unpaid wars. Why didn't Meeks attack Rubio on how he expects to reduce the deficit and add another 800 billion dollars of tax cuts to the debt. Meeks should have also attacked Rubio border heathcare plan and why it would not have worked. I don't know why the democrats don't take Obama's lead on arguing the facts of Healthcare and the Bush tax cuts. They are not doing a good job on exposing why the Republicans are really against the Healthcare bill and that is the regulations and the cuts to big businesses and healthcare insures.

[Carole65]

01:19 PM on 10/13/2010

The Health Care Reform legislation has nothing to do with the Bush tax cuts. What took Bush 8 years to accomplish in the national debt, Obama is projected to more than double the national debt if he remains in office until 2016.
Why is it, do you suppose, that the Dems. running for office aren't endorsing the ARRA and Health Care Reform? Could it be that the so called "facts" of the cost will not withstand the scrutiny of the actual cost down the road - much like the Mass. Health Care Reform and Bush's Medicare Bill.
ARRA did not reduce unemployment to 8%, as promised by the President. Wouldn't you, as a candidate, distance yourself from these massive spending bills, while not dealing with an unpassed budget and a reality check of a stagnant source of income, due to unemployment?

[TimothyLasVegas]

12:10 PM on 10/13/2010

The cost of college tuition has increased at a rate 4 times the Consumer Price Index, over the past 30 years.

We are experiencing a "bubble" in the cost of college fueled in a major way by the "funny money" of school loans. Put simply, anytime you enhance the purchasing power of a large segment of demand, you will generate excessive price inflation, thus creating the need for even more enhancement. And, the cycle continues, feeding on itself.

Now, we want students, all students, to be able to attend college. So, what is the solution? You must attack supply. You must increase the availability of, and decrease the cost to develop, supply. By doing so, you decrease the price of tuition, and reduce the number of students who require subsidies to attend.

So, why don't politicians attack supply? Three reasons. First, you look better handing out money; buying votes ("I increased the tax credit to $2,500!"). Second, politicians use these methods to send money to groups that support them (campaign contributions); in this case the educational system that is dominantly liberal. Third, simply, it is easier; allocate funding and setup some criteria, and you are done.

College tuition has increased at a rate 4 times the CPI, an entire generation of students are locked into tens of thousands of dollars of debt, and the President has proclaimed that the solution is to throw even more money at the problem.

You are right, Mr. President. That will work......Not.

[WeWantSocialismNow]

11:48 AM on 10/13/2010

I want to thank all you college students for supporting President Obama and the Democrat Congress.

Their strategy is easy... spend money now and make things easier for this generation. The wonderful part of this is that my generation doesn't have to pay for it, yours will. It's so cool... like having an unlimited credit card and sending the bill to a bunch of young kids!. So enjoy your tax break, keep supporting those Democrats and when you're older and struggling under the tax burden of paying down the debt we are creating today, just remember one thing...

keep your hands off my Medicare and Social Security.

If you don't, there will be so many of us that we will vote in people who will make sure you do! Thanks for all you are going to do!

[bungerman]

01:11 PM on 10/13/2010

your generation already put us in this mess in the first place. Thanks for nothing.

[Dan1902]

01:49 PM on 10/13/2010

GEEK! No facts just Fox Talking points get a new shtick or go away tro//!!! LOL

[ReleaseDragula]

11:33 AM on 10/13/2010

It's always funny how liberals fall in love with tax cuts when elections roll around.

[cybersense]

12:27 PM on 10/13/2010

oh my. You think what again?

[bungerman]

01:11 PM on 10/13/2010

and here I thought half the stimulus was tax cuts no where near an election date, oh wait... IT WAS.

[lqw]

11:20 AM on 10/13/2010

"MTV, BET and CMT are casting the audience for town hall meeting with President Obama. Shooting Oct. 14, 4 p.m. in Washington, D.C. Seeking—Audience Members: males & females, 18+,” the casting call says, “To ensure that the audience represents diverse interests and political views, include your name, phone number, hometown, school attending, your job and what issues, if any, you are interested in or passionate about. Also, provide a recent photo and short description of your political views.”

The casting call says that there is no pay for the appearance at the town hall."
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/10/casting-call-for-audience-of-obamas-mtv-town-hall.html

[Lisa Shields]

11:06 AM on 10/13/2010

I'm in college now, as is my 19 year old daughter.
For those who think it's peanuts, grand.
But we "make too much money" (HA!) to qualify for anything but student loans. I had one child because that was all I felt I could afford, emotionally and financially. If I had five kids, they would all be getting full boat financial aid.

The point is that this credit means something to the middle class. Every dollar we can get from it is one I won't have to borrow to get my daughter through college. PLUS interest.

[Osmona]

11:17 AM on 10/13/2010

Thank YOU for giving a "real face" to this issue. We NEED more people like you to come forward with you OWN personal experiences. I really believe that if the Dems stay in control, we will see MORE progress. However, slow, we will see MORE.

Fanned

[lemmyk73]

11:04 AM on 10/13/2010

can anyone explain these remarks? Seems like they lied from day one.

In the magazine article, Mr. Obama reflects on his presidency, admitting that he let himself look too much like “the same old tax-and-spend Democrat,” realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects” and perhaps should have “let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts” in the stimulus.

and

“It’s just really hard to convince people that when there weren’t, up until the first of the year, when there weren’t net new jobs it’s awful hard to say, ‘It’s working,’” he said at the end of a three-state campaign swing Oct. 7-8 for four Democratic candidates in Wisconsin, Missouri, and Washington. “It’s counterintuitive.”

[PaxEterna]

10:55 AM on 10/13/2010

The tax credit is peanuts compared to the overall cost . . .

This nation, like other civilized societies, ought to put the education of its young people on the front burner and get them ready for the world they are about to inherit.

Instead, we the wealthiest nation on earth, saddle them with huge debt before they even step out on their own.

This President's solution? More community colleges.

If I recall correctly, we didn't send people to community colleges on the GI Bill.

Why should we now? Oh, I forgot, it's cheaper.

This just contributes to the class divide between those who can afford 4 years, and those who can't.

Not a solution, just parsing the pie into smaller and smaller pieces for the American with average means.

Here is one American who is tired of seeing my tax dollars go to forever wars, subsidies to the insurance cartel, bailouts to the banks which screw us not once but always every which way etc.

Let's bring the troops home, sign on to mandatory higher education for all capable young people, universal health care, and start rebuilding our infrastructure so we have a society we can be proud to hand off to the next generation. It's time . . .

[mashtoe]

10:29 AM on 10/13/2010

Will Obama highlight the ways H-1b work visas drive down wages for college grads? The Democrats support funding for education (money borrowed from our children) and they also support H-1b which drives down wages and creates unemployment. This is all great news for the rich, more of a downward slide for working people.

[luckyone77]

12:08 PM on 10/13/2010

Funny, why is it with the working class we are always told the pie is shrinking, while the corporate elilte continue to take increasingly larger shares. Today is just like Orwells Animal Farm, where the pigs take the largest share where the other animals have to make do with scraps. And then they tell us the problem is not the pigs, but that there are too many workers. Something wrong with this picture.

[ThatsTheTheWayItIs]

10:29 AM on 10/13/2010

Obama is not selling his de-privatization of student loans, his biggest contribution. That's because it hurt Wall St, took profitable loans away from banks.

Folks here want Obama to bash banks and Wall St, he knows that is political suicide.

[robertso2020]

10:01 AM on 10/13/2010

that should help cover a college students iPhone data plan

[Osmona]

11:24 AM on 10/13/2010

Somethings better than nothing.

[ambrecel]

09:55 AM on 10/13/2010

He's again doing something that will help move the country into the next decade. NOT bad for only being in office for 21 months.

[SwimUpstream]

12:17 PM on 10/13/2010

You're hogging the bong again

[ambrecel]

12:54 PM on 10/13/2010

I don't smoke. Non-smoker.

[HeartT]

09:50 AM on 10/13/2010

Obama to highlight benefits of tax credit: Where has the media been on this? why haven't they talked at nauseum about this benefit to young people? The media picks and chooses its so-called relevant topics and ignores way too many. That's why our information is lopsided and our decisions are flawed. We need real journalists out there not afraid to give us the entire picture, all the facts, not just the ones that make for dramatic conflict.