share: digg facebook twitter WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama set up another clash with Republicans on Monday by proposing $1.5 trillion in new taxes aimed primarily at the wealthy as part of a plan to rid the United States of more than $3 trillion in budget deficits. Obama's recommendation to a joint congressional committee served as a sharp counterpoint to Republican lawmakers, who have insisted that tax increases should play no part in taming the nation's escalating national debt. The deficit reduction plan represents an economic bookend to the $447 billion in tax cuts and new public works spending that Obama has proposed as a short-term measure to stimulate the economy and create jobs. "Class warfare may make for really good politics but it makes for rotten economics," Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, said Sunday in reaction to an Obama tax proposal to impose a minimum tax rate on wealthy filers. Obama called the measure the "Buffett Rule" for billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has spoken of the unfairness that he pays taxes at a lower rate than that paid by his secretary.