Obama's budget significantly raises taxes on the wealthy.

[pnwmom]

It would return income and capital gains taxes to pre-2001 levels for the wealthy and return estate taxes to 2009 levels. It would also include a new reduction of the charitable and mortgage deductions that can be taken by the wealthy -- down to 28% from the current high of 35%.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/144073-president-sets-up-round-2-over-keeping-bush-tax-rates

SNIP

The White House budget for 2012 would end the Bush tax cuts for income above $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for families at the end of 2012 and bring the recently enacted estate tax figure back to its 2009 levels — just weeks after a compromise brokered in part by the administration put those policies into place.

In a message accompanying his budget, the president said that those tax policies “were unfair and unaffordable when enacted and remain so today” and that he was forced to accept them for two years to stop a tax increase on the middle class.

The president also proposed paying for a three-year “patch” to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) by reducing the amount wealthy taxpayers can take in itemized deductions — affecting, among other things, mortgage and charitable deductions.

And, as he has in previous budgets, the president suggested limiting corporations’ abilities to defer income tax on income raised overseas.

SNIP

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-14/rejected-tax-increases-for-high-earners-return-in-obama-s-budget-proposal.html

The proposal also would bring back pre-2001 tax rates on income and capital gains for individuals earning more than $200,000 annually and married couples making more than $250,000. The estate tax would return to 2009 levels with a $3.5 million per-person exemption and a 45 percent top rate. Under a law Obama signed in December, lower rates expire at the end of 2012.

SNIP

The budget plan would limit itemized deductions for top earners to 28 percent, curbing the value of tax breaks for charitable contributions, home mortgage interest and state and local taxes. That proposal has been included in every budget of Obama’s presidency and was rejected as a revenue-raising provision to fund his overhaul of the health system last year.

SNIP

[slackmaster]

1. I wish they'd just fix the damned AMT instead of patching it over and over and over

It just needs to be indexed to inflation so that it doesn't start affecting the middle class.

Congress wastes huge amounts of time patching it.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. It's about fucking time.

And loads of good luck getting this through the Republican-held House.

Damn it.

:mad:

[jaxx]

3. K&R

[Lorien]

4. "Would end Bush era tax cuts at the end of 2012" when they already expire

nice spin, though.

[pnwmom]

5. They would be permanent if it were up to the Rethugs. And the cut in

deductions for mortgage and charitable interest for the wealthy is entirely new.

[tallahasseedem]

6. Shhhh!

Obama haters don't like those pesky facts!

[burning rain]

7. "Would" is the key word. This budget plan is DOA in the House.

The White House certainly knows it. Had they been serious about rasing taxes on the rich, they'd have done so near the beginning of the previous Congress, as Democrats did in 1993 (without a single Republican vote).