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President Obama called on Congress to pass a one year extension of Bush-era tax cuts just for Americans making under $250,000 a year. "Those tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans are also the tax cuts that are least likely to promote growth," he said during a ceremony at the White House, Monday. "We don't need more top down economics. We have tried that theory. We have seen what happened. We can't afford to go back to it." House Republicans want to keep the tax cuts in place permanently for both middle- and upper-income Americans, and congressional Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have been pushing to extend them to anyone earning up to $1 million. Obama’s initiative to extend them for just one year and just to those in the middle class is an effort on his part to make Republicans’ demands look unreasonable, though it will likely do little to break through the gridlock that already exists in Congress.