they bear the name of his predecessor. president obama is seizing the bush tax cutted and calling for them to be extend, but not for everyone. the president wants to let them expire for the wealthiest americans. that puts him at odds with congressional republicans, as well as his rival mitt romney and sets the stage for a very heated battle with less than four months to go before the election. our white house correspondent brianna keilar is covering this for us. first of all, why is the president doing this today? reporter: well, wolf, this is certainly part of his narrative that he s trying to put out there as he runs for re-election. this is very much happening through that political prism. he tried to portray himself as really the one fighting for the middle class. now he s trying to portray his opponent mitt romney and congressional republicans as being defenders of the wealthy. so what he s calling for is for an extension of the bush-era tax cuts only for american fami