(Image source: White House Flickr)

BY CHRISTINA HARTMAN

You're watching multisource politics news analysis from Newsy.

The fight over how to pay for President Obama’s jobs plan is coming down to two little words:

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC) ON CNN: “When you pick one area of the economy, and say we'll tax those people because most people are not those people, that's class warfare."

REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI) ON FOX NEWS: "Class warfare might make for good politics, but it makes for rotten economics.”

Part of the president’s plan is to raise tax rates on millionaires and billionaires -- and he’s playing hardball.  He’s telling Republicans -- no changes to beneficiaries of entitlement programs like Medicare -- without higher taxes on the wealthy.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: “This is not class warfare. It’s math. … I will not support any plan that puts all the burden of closing our deficit on ordinary Americans.”

It’s the right’s phrase of the week -- class warfare. But where does it come from? CNN’s Carol Costello provides some context.

“It is a term made famous by that influential socialist Karl Marx. He describes it as when the lowly worker rises up against the wealthy class who exploited him making the rich people pay.”

President Obama’s plan calls for the so-called “Buffett Rule”  after billionaire investor Warren Buffett -- who has famously pointed out his tax rate is lower than his secretary’s. In principle -- the Buffett Rule would raise taxes on the wealthy to at least that of a middle class household.

On MSNBC - Luke Russert reports -- the move puts President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner more firmly entrenched in their respective corners.

“Now, liberals love it. They say the president is doubling down on things he should have done a long time. It was wrong of the president to even think the republicans were willing to negotiate, that he should go into the trenches and The rich are getting way too much of a good deal here, the poor and middle class are burdening way too much of these cuts.”

But conservative commentator Mike Reagan, Ronald Reagan’s son, tells Fox Business -- the left is looking at this all wrong.

MIKE REAGAN: “When you think the top 1% pay 30% of the taxes and the bottom 50% pay 2% of the taxes. What is it we are not paying? My question is why are we taxing Warren Buffett's secretary? We need to lower taxes.”

And while both sides fight over who pays what -- The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson argues -- this isn’t class warfare at all. Or war. He suggests -- because we’re talking about preserving entitlements seniors depend on -- this is really about the senior vote.

“Republicans want to make this a debate about class warfare because it plays into their charge that Democrats are secretly socialists. Democrats wouldn't mind making this a debate about class warfare because it plays into their charge that Republicans are secretly heartless. But behind the clash, there is a larger agreement between the leaders of both parties: seniors are untouchable.”
 

Transcript by Newsy