Data on Tax Proposals

Ezra Klein publishes date from The Wall Street Journal and The Tax Foundation to summarize the effect of President Obama's tax proposals versus allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire versus extending them in The Washington Post.

The pattern here is fairly simple. Letting all the tax cuts expire produces the highest tax burden of the three for every group except the very rich, who pay the most under Obama's plan. Below the $300,000-a-year group, the lowest burden comes from the Obama tax proposals, while above that group it comes from extending the Bush tax cuts. Extending the cuts in their entirety, then, would primarily benefit high earners, while the Obama plan both raises rates on very high earners, relative to the status quo, and reduces the burden of low- and middle-income taxpayers.

--Ballard Burgher