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Hoping to dominate the narrative on a holiday weekend and on the eve of the annual “State of the Union” speech, the Obama White House late Saturday night leaked some of the new tax ideas in their upcoming budget. One tax hike in particular was very odd, since it’s aimed almost exclusively at middle class families with kids–the exact demographic the goodies in the tax plan is targeting. The levy in question would increase taxes on college savings accounts known as “529 plans” (after their section in the Internal Revenue Code). By definition, these accounts are really only used by...

As the old saying goes, there are two things that are certain in life, death and taxes. Tomorrow night during his 2015 State of the Union speech, President Obama will announce that people paying taxes their entire lives just isn't good enough. The President wants the current 40 percent death tax rate increased to 60 percent. Americans for Tax Reform breaks down the details: 2. Stealth increase in the death tax rate from 40% to nearly 60%. Under current law, when you inherit an asset your basis in the asset is the higher of the fair market value at the...

President Obama will call for higher taxes on the wealthy and large financial institutions in his State of the Union address on Tuesday. Obama will propose that the $320 billion in tax hikes be used to pay for tax cuts for the middle class, as well as a range of programs, the White House said Saturday. His plan would generate $320 billion over 10 years by raising the capital gains and dividends rate to 28 percent — the same rate under President Reagan, White House officials point out — on inherited assets, such as trust funds. The proposal calls for...

President Obama will use his State of the Union address to call on Congress to raise taxes and fees on the wealthiest taxpayers and the largest financial firms to finance an array of tax cuts for the middle class, pressing to reshape the tax code to help working families, administration officials said on Saturday. The proposal faces long odds in the Republican-controlled Congress, led by lawmakers who have long opposed raising taxes and who argue that doing so would hamper economic growth at a time the country cannot afford it. And it was quickly dismissed by leading Republicans as a...

**SNIP** He is set to announce plans that will make it easier for Americans to but homes and attend college. It is a plan he is hoping will be carried by the momentum gained following the high-profile immigration moves with Cuba. On Wednesday he plans to stop in Michigan, Arizona and Tennessee aimed at highlighting how his own economic policies were contributing to the country's recovery. Obama, expected back in Washington on Sunday, has appeared energized by the end-of-the-year action on immigration policy and Cuban relations, suggesting continued presidential relevance despite a political landscape dramatically altered by deep Democratic losses...

Two top aides to President Obama hailed his “year of action” as a success Monday, saying the president took more than 80 executive actions without Congress to help the middle class. National Economic Council Director Jeffrey Zients and Domestic Policy Council Director Cecilia Munoz said in a blog post that Mr. Obama will try to work the the new Republican Congress next year, but will also “continue to use every authority available to make progress through executive actions” in 2015.

Are you dazed and confused by Barack Obama, the nominal Democrat, whose conduct as president since 2009 has seen him sink from nearly 70 percent to 40 percent or less in the national polling, from which he has seemed to learn nothing, but still marches on? Fear not, the doctor is in: Fred Siegel of the Manhattan Institute, whose latest book, The Revolt Against The Masses: How Liberalism Has Undermined the Middle Class, explains all you wanted to know about Obama, and much else. It explains why he never became the new Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy or Lyndon...

In January 2009, the month President Obama entered the Oval Office and shortly before he signed his stimulus spending bill, median household income was $54,983. By June 2012, it had tumbled to $50,964, adjusted for inflation. (See the chart nearby.) That's $4,019 in lost real income, a little less than a month's income every year.