The Early Word: Budget Blueprint

This morning, President Obama presented the broad outlines of his first budget, which projects a huge deficit number — $1.75 trillion — as well as a combination of cuts in government spending as well as tax increases.

The Times’s Jackie Calmes and Robert Pear point out that wealthy Americans will face tax increases to help pay for the Obama administration’s health care proposals. They write:

The tax proposal, coming after recent years in which wealth has become more concentrated at the top of the income scale, introduces a politically volatile edge to the Congressional debate over Mr. Obama’s domestic priorities.
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The combined effect of the two revenue-raising proposals, on top of Mr. Obama’s existing plan to roll back the Bush-era income tax reductions on households with income exceeding $250,000 a year, would be a pronounced move to redistribute wealth by reimposing a larger share of the tax burden on corporations and the most affluent taxpayers. continue reading...