Audio: Obama's Answer to Early Google Employee's 'Would you please raise my taxes?'; Watch Entire LinkedIn Appearance

Update 4:35 p.m. Here’s the complete video of today’s Obama appearance in Mountain View, hosted by LinkedIn:

Original post
Here’s one interesting exchange at today’s LinkedIn town hall with President Obama today…

A man says, “I don’t have a job but that’s because I’ve been lucky enough to live in Silicon Valley for awhile and work for a small startup down the street here that did quite well. so I’m unemployed by choice. My question is: Would you please raise my taxes? … I would like very much to have the country invest in things like Pell grants and infrastructure and job-training programs that made it possible for me to get to where I am. It kills me to see Congress not supporting the expiration of the tax cuts that have been benefiting so many of us for so long. I think that needs to change and I hope you’ll stay strong in doing that.”

“What was the start-up by the way?” Obama asks. “You want to give me a little hint?”

“It’s a search engine,” the man says, pseudo-cryptically.

The president then gives his point of view on the matter, which in part is this: “So often the tax debate gets framed as class warfare. [But] we’re successful because somebody invested in our education, somebody built schools, somebody created incredible universities… We benefited from somebody somewhere making an investment in us…”

He then goes on to say that the income of “folks at the top” has gone up “exponentially over the last couple of decades, whereas the income and wages of the middle class have flatlined over the last 15 years.”

So who was the employee who asked the question?

From the Chron’s Carla Marinucci:

http://twitter.com/#!/cmarinucci/statuses/118410646223192065

Update 1:59 p.m. Someone posted a video of the question in our comments section:

Wonder if that guy is going to head over to Facebook to ask the same question of the GOP’s Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, and Kevin McCarthy at 3 p.m. today…

You can read a recounting of the complete event in this San Jose Mercury News live blog.

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President Obama will be speaking on jobs and the economy in what is being called a Town Hall Meeting on jobs and the economy, sponsored by LinkedIn, and held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.

Watch live at the White House site or below. The Merc is live-blogging.

And here are the questions people submitted through LinkedIn.

At least two ask him when he’s going to resign, though I have a hunch he’s not going to field that one…