President Barack Obama struggled Tuesday to stop wholesale defections by fellow Democrats that could go under the tax deal he worked out with Republicans — angry confrontation that could subject millions of Americans to a big holiday-season tax increase.
Many GOP lawmakers seemed ready to hold in your arms the Obama-GOP compromise and declare victory. The question was whether enough Democrats would join them in hold up, particularly in the House, where liberal acrimony of the president's concession on tax breaks for the wealthiest runs strong.
Obama went on national TV to give a ringing security of his compromise, declaring it the necessary price for heading off a tax increase that neither taxpayers nor the weak financial system could stand and for ahead more months of being without a job payments for millions of jobless workers.
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