"To get there, Obama proposes to cut spending and raise taxes. The savings would come primarily from "winding down the war" in Iraq, a senior administration official said. The budget assumes that the nation will continue to spend money on "overseas military contingency operations" throughout Obama's presidency, the official said, but that number is significantly lower than the nearly $190 billion the nation budgeted for Iraq and Afghanistan last year.
Obama also seeks to increase tax collections, primarily by making good on his promise to eliminate the temporary tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 for wealthy taxpayers, whom Obama defined during the campaign as those earning more than $250,000 a year. Those tax breaks would be permitted to expire on schedule for the 2011 tax year, when the top tax rate would rise from 35 percent to more than 39 percent.
Obama also proposes to maintain the tax on estates worth more than $3.5 million, instead of letting it expire next year. And he proposes "a fairly aggressive effort on tax enforcement" that would target tax havens and corporate loopholes, among other provisions, the official said.
Overall, tax collections under the plan would rise from about 16 percent of the economy this year to 19 percent in 2013, while federal spending would drop from about 26 percent of the economy, another post-war high, to 22 percent."
People need to actually read these articles first, before throwing their partisan "hands" up in disgust.
In my opinion, the 3rd paragraph of this article is highly misleading.
For those that have some actual understanding of the Estate Tax, the first $3.5 million free from tax is better than nothing, given that Congress has shied away from Estate Tax issues and the current legislation "sunsets" after 2010, with the amount allowed to be free of Estate Tax being ONLY $1 million dollars starting in 2011 and anything above $1.0 million taxed at 55%.
Thus, Obama's proposal is actually much better than what becomes law after the "sunset" in 2010.