Obama: After the Newton shooting what the country needs is a tax hike; Flashback: Obama played politics with Virginia Tech tragedy

Speaking at a White House news conference on Wednesday, President Obama said that, after last week's shooting rampage in Sandy Hook elementary school, what the country needs is higher taxes.

"When you think about what we've gone through over the last couple of months - a devastating hurricane and now one of the worst tragedies in our memory - the country deserves folks to be willing to compromise on behalf of the greater good," said Obama. He added, "I remain eager to get something done. I'd like to get it done before Christmas."

"If this past week has done anything, it should just give us some perspective," he said. "I mean, if there's one thing we should have after this week, it should be a sense of perspective about what's important", tax hikes.

"I would like to think that members of that [Republican] caucus would say to themselves, 'You know what? We disagree with the president on a whole bunch of things,'" he said. "'But right now what the country needs is for us to compromise" and to raise taxes.

On April 16, 2007, the day of the Virginia Tech shooting, then-Presidential candidate Barack Obama spoke at a campaign rally in Milwaukee, WI, where he cunningly associated the tragic act of violence to a host of unrelated political issues, thereby politicizing the horrific tragedy - as he craftily stretched and squeezed the definition of the word "violence". See the video below.