It is getting ridiculous. Why is America not up in arms yet? I have been talking to a few liberal friends, the folks that thought Bush was the Anti-Christ, that are starting to not trust Obama. As someone who donates a substantial amount of money to multiple charities, higher corporate taxes, higher personal taxes, and now this, finding money to donate is getting tough. America has always been a country known for charity. Look at the tsunami last year, the American public donated more than every country combined.

READ ALL TEH WORDS PLEASE
Obama's call to limit high-income taxpayers' itemized deductions for charitable donations and mortgage interest.

Geithner said Obama's plan would cut income taxes for 95 percent of families and 97 percent of small businesses. Raising taxes on couples that make more than $250,000 would make the tax system more equitable, restoring the balance that existed before a series of tax cuts were enacted under former President George W. Bush, he said

Maybe the purpose of punishing charitable giving is to reduce it intentionally, then later point to the failure of private charity as justification for more gov't spending to make up for the failure. This "bail out" of former recipients increases the ranks of those who are dependent on gov't. They, in turn, are more likely to vote for those who now control their income. You must seriously wonder if the anti-capitalist forces in our country created the failure of the economy so they can now condemn "the market" and force their alternative economic model as the solution.

I am new to this site. After reading the article and the 3 comments above all I can say is 2 of you got it right and one wants to believe that lollipops and sunshine are going to forever be raining down upon us.
D matthews- you are correct that Ombabm's CURRENT plan will help 95% of American families. What happens when the rich start to figure out the loop holes, shelter their $ or even worse move their wealth out of our country? I'll tell you what will happen... that $250K threshold will begin to lower, then new cap and trade rates and taxes will start to appear (because we must get the money from somewhere), now whose paying???? The poor soul who has 4 kids and making $50k a year. BillM has it right, this is just one more "power play" by the government to control who gets what and the government will decide what issues are "worthy" of receiving funds and those that are not can be funded by the private sector....even though they will no longer be providing tax credits, oh well, sucks to be an "unworhty" cause.

These kind of policies will RUIN America and all that we have worked so hard and fought so long to achieve.
Please write your Congressional Representatives do not take this sitting down we MUST have our voices heard!

I am a small business owner with 12 employees. We file our taxes as a Sub-Chapter S, meaning that this business is filed on our personal tax return. My wife and I are part of the "wealthiest 2%". Tax us more and that is less money for us to hire people, market products and grow our business.

Take off your blinders. You want to tax WEALTH, then tax wealth, not income.

The best way to keep people out of the upper class to tax their income. You can never get rich when they take over half of what you make. One step forward, one step back.

KeithF