Barack Obama’s ambitious plan to take roughly $131 billion from your bulging pockets so that he can keep taxes low and refunds high for the middle class on down.

Obama wants to hike taxes to Clinton-administration levels, lifting the top marginal rate to 39.6% versus 35% today, for roughly 5.6 million wealthy tax filers. “Wealthy,” in Obama-speak, covers filers reporting income of $250,000 or more. The hike on this gilded army, which is four times larger than our active-duty military, would let Obama to keep the Bush tax cuts in place for the remaining 143.7 million filers.

According to Urban-Brookings, Obama’s tax plan will increase the national debt by $3.4 trillion by 2018 if he can’t persuade Congress to significantly cut spending. Republican John McCain’s plan cuts revenue even more, and would boost the debt by $5 trillion if he doesn’t bring discretionary and entitlement spending under control. Both candidates claim they have the courage to do this.

The above is from the business publication, Barron’s.