'Radical' Budget Aims to Shrink Income Gap

Overhauling tax code, Obama's plans would reverse 30-year trend
By Jason Farago,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 27, 2009 11:35 AM CST
'Radical' Budget Aims to Shrink Income Gap
Copies of President Obama's budget for fiscal 2010 are picked up at the US Government Printing Office in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2009.    (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Barack Obama's first budget is, above all, an attempt to shrink the gap between rich and poor that has grown rapidly for 30 years, writes David Leonhardt of the New York Times. The "bold, even radical" budget hikes taxes on the rich while dropping them to their lowest point in decades for lower-income Americans. Its also plows money into health care and education, where inequities have drained money from the middle class.

Income inequality plummeted after World War II and began to expand again in 1980, when Ronald Reagan came to power. Since then, the top 1% of households have seen their average post-tax income jump by $1 million, adjusted for inflation. Obama's budget will likely cost them $100,000 a year in new taxes—if, that is, "Congress will pass a budget that looks anything like his." (More Barack Obama stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X