PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Mayor Michael Nutter is praising President Obama for compromising on federal tax cuts and unemployment benefits.

The mayor says President Obama did the right thing by cutting a deal to preserve middle-class tax cuts.  And Nutter says the president chose to get things done rather than score political points.

“Without the deal that was announced last night,” Nutter said on Tuesday morning, “every American’s taxes would have gone up at the worst possible time.  People who are hardest hit by the recession and who are unemployed (would have had) their livelihoods placed further in danger — all to make a point.”

Nutter says there are 73,000 people out of work in Philadelphia — 18,000 of whom would have exhausted their unemployment benefits next year without the extension in the president’s plan.

Reported by Mike DeNardo, KYW Newsradio 1060.