“This is not class warfare, it is math” President Obama told the nation as he unfolded his blueprint for cutting the federal deficit by an additional $3 trillion.

After nearly three years of trying to find middle ground with House and Senate Republicans and being spurned at every turn, the President offered a vision that is wholly his.

It calls for collecting $1.5 trillion by letting the Bush tax cuts for wealthy earners (individuals making $200,000 and families making $250,000) expire; capping their charitable deductions; and closing corporate loopholes that benefit gas and oil companies, executive jet owners, and hedge fund managers. In addition, the President asked Congress to enact what he called the Buffet Rule, a surtax on millionaires.

Obama said that his plan would save one trillion dollars by bringing home a substantial number of combat troops from Afghanistan and Iraq as those wars wind down. He proposed cutting $248 billion from Medicare and $72 billion from Medicaid, and $180 billion from other programs.

When combined with the $1 trillion in cuts the President and Congress agreed to in August, the net of this plan is deficit reduction of more than $4 trillion by 2020.

The Republicans reaction was swift and predictable: the President is launching class warfare, Rep. Paul Ryan (R WI) and Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) Mitch McConnell (R-KY and the Senate’s minority leader) said on Sunday morning talk shows.

Their logic is absurd. They tout proposals to destroy Medicare, convert Medicaid into a block grant, and turn Social Security over to stockbrokers as responsible politics, but label a recommendation to increase taxes for the very rich “class warfare”.

In fact, true class warfare is adopting tax cuts for the rich, deregulating the financial industry, repealing environmental regulations, and hawking war policies… all of which combined to destroy the economy during the Bush years.

The fruits of this class war are an increase in poverty to the highest level in 52 years; a widening of the wealth gap between the rich and the poor to record levels; and millions of people losing their jobs and their homes. The Republicans are the true class warriors.

House Speaker John Boehner’s comment was equally disingenuous. He said the President was taxing job creators, and (in a speech last week) he blasted the administration for enacting regulations on businesses.

Consider the facts: The Bush era was one of massive deregulation and tax cuts, just what Boehner is calling for today. Did private sector jobs grow? No. In the month that Obama took office they fell by 700,000, and that was the 11^th straight month of decline.

The job numbers began to turn upward under Obama in March 2010, and there has been a net monthly increase of private sector jobs since that time.

So, just as the Republicans are class warriors, they are also job killers. But despite this dismal record they have been successful in “rebranding every failing of the Bush administration as Obama’s fault,” wrote Bill Keller in the New York Times. (www.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/opinion/filling-in-the-blanks.html?hp)

I am delighted to see the President decide it is time to take off the gloves (peoplesvisionusa.com/front-page/it-is-time-mr-president/). The combination of his deficit reduction plan and the American Jobs Act is what the country needs at this moment.

But, Obama will have to remain single minded in taking his vision of a fair deal to the people. Republicans will continue to demonize any proposal that blurs their vision of a government too weak and too small to interfere with their business benefactors, either through regulation or taxation. The President needs to stiffen the backbone of Senate Democrats and they need to stand together in support of the Obama proposals.

Obama will have to remain firm in his commitments to refuse support for “any plan that puts all the burden for closing our deficit on ordinary Americans…” He must make good on his promise to “veto any bill that changes benefits for those who rely on Medicare but does not raise serious revenues by asking the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share.”

That is not class warfare, and it is more than math: It is good policy.

Do you agree? Is the President asking for too much, too late?