On 'Tonight Show,' Obama Urges Steadiness in Face of Crisis

By LAURA MECKLER
Wall Street Journal

LOS ANGELES -- President Barack Obama reacted coolly to a House bill that would use the tax system to try and confiscate nearly all the bonuses paid to American International Group Inc. employees.

It's important, he said, not to "lurch from thing to thing" in trying to address the nation's big problems.

"Look, I understand Congress' frustrations," he said on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." But he suggested that legislators were being more vindictive than constructive.

"Everybody's angry... but I think that the best way to handle this is to make sure that you close the door before the horse gets out of the barn. And what happened here was the money's already gone out, and people are scrambling to try to find ways to get back at them," he said.

From there, he went on to pitch his long-stated proposals to change the tax code by increasing taxes on all upper-income Americans, specifically families earning more than $250,000 a year and individuals earning more than $200,000 annually.

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