Obama Pushes GOP To Extend Payroll Tax Cut [Video]

President Barack Obama gave a speech at a Scranton high school on Wednesday, in an effort to push Congressional Republicans to extend and expand this year’s payroll tax cut. If Congress does not extend the tax cut, then taxes will increase for 160 million Americans next year.

Excerpts of Obama’s speech are below, via the Associated Press:

House Speaker John Boehner says that Republicans will not extend the tax cut without offsetting cuts from elsewhere in the budget.

There is a political dimension to president’s visit as well; although Obama won Pennsylvania with 54 percent of the vote in 2008, many pundits speculate that the weak economy could put the state in play in the 2012 campaign.