Top Republicans in Congress yesterday rejected President Barack Obama’s pugnacious demand for $1.5 trillion in new taxes on the rich in a plan aimed at reining in the galloping US deficit.

“Pitting one group of Americans against another is not leadership,” said Republican House Speaker John Boehner, whom Obama specifically targeted in an acerbic, campaign-style speech to lay out his proposal.

Republican Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell also bluntly dismissed the plan, which ran headlong into lockstep opposition from Republicans who say raising taxes on the rich and wealthy corporations will smother job growth.

“Veto threats, a massive tax hike, phantom savings, and punting on entitlement reform is not a recipe for economic or job growth – or even meaningful deficit reduction,” said Mr McConnell.

Opposition from Mr Boehner and Mr McConnell means Mr Obama’s gambit is unlikely to clear the Republican-held House of Representatives and faces high hurdles in the Democratic-led Senate ahead of the November 2012 elections.

Mr Boehner complained that the President had “not made a serious contribution” to the work of a new congressional “Supercommittee” tasked with finding at least $1.2 trillion in deficit cuts over 10 years.

“This Administration’s insistence on raising taxes on job creators and its reluctance to take the steps necessary to strengthen our entitlement programs are the reasons the President and I were not able to reach an agreement previously, and it is evident today that these barriers remain,” Mr Boehner said.

The speaker was referring to the bruising debt-limit battle in which conservative Republican anger at a call for increased revenues scuttled a burgeoning deal between him and Mr Obama to pare back social safety net programmes dear to Democrats while boosting tax receipts.