If Obama wants to know what “radical” looks like then he needs to look no further than the nearest mirror.

(CBS News) — Pivoting from the news of last week’s tepid jobs report, President Obama on Monday proposed a one-year extension of Bush-era tax cuts for Americans making less than $250,000, reiterating his calls to let tax cuts for high-earning Americans expire, and reopening a politically contentious debate that is likely to result in a drawn-out congressional battle just months before the November election.

Mr. Obama, speaking from the East Room of the White House, argued that top-down economics favored by many Republicans simply “didn’t work.” […]

“I’m not proposing anything radical here,” Mr. Obama added. “We all say that we should extend tax cuts for 98% of the people…so we should all agree to extend the tax cuts for the middle class.”

Up to 940K households would take a direct hit from his plan:

(Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama’s plan to raise tax rates for the top 2 percent of U.S. households would mean higher taxes on the people who report 53 percent of business income reported on individual returns, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

The nonpartisan analysts prepared the data at the request of Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the panel’s top Republican, said the document was “irrefutable proof” that tax rates shouldn’t go up.

“With our economy as weak as it is, it makes absolutely no sense to hit more and more small businesses with a tax hike,” he said in a statement. […]

According to JCT, next year 940,000 households within the top 2 percent will report net positive business income and will face marginal tax rates that would be 36 percent or 39.6 percent under Obama’s plan, up from 33 percent and 35 percent now. That represents 3.5 percent of taxpayers who have business income and 53 percent of net positive business income, the analysis said.

HT: GWP