[...]

And then there's also the U.S. Treasury Department's "General Explanations of the Administration's Fiscal Year 2011 Revenue Proposals," known by policy wonks as "the green book." It outlines in even more detail how the Obama administration plans to increase taxes for high-earners and keep the current rates for everyone else.

"It is very much an official statement of policy. It's what they propose to do," said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow with the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. "Obviously, Congress will do or won't do what it will. But I have heard no one on the Hill saying we should let everything expire."

News coverage from other publications from The Wall Street Journal to our fellow fact-checkers at Factcheck.org have also noted the Democratic proposals and ideas on these issues.

"The Democrats' plan seems to me to be quite explicit: keep the tax cuts for those under $250,000 and let those for the rich expire," said Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, and a longtime watcher of Congress. "Does that mean never, ever taxing the under-$250 (thousand) populace? No. But it is a straightforward policy plan."

Palin does make a good point that there is not pending legislation to make some parts of the Bush tax cuts permanent. Certainly, lots of unexpected and surprising things can happen when Congress actually begins to take up legislation. It's possible that Congress could become entirely gridlocked. If no legislation passes, the Bush tax cuts will indeed expire for all incomes.

And, she's also right that on the campaign trail Obama promised not to raise "any" taxes on a family making less than $250,000. We rated that Promise Broken after Obama signed laws increasing taxes on cigarettes and indoor tanning. There is also the controversial tax penalty in the new health care law that will tax those who don't have insurance, starting in 2014. Yet Obama also promised to extend the Bush tax cuts for lower incomes and let the Bush tax cuts expire for higher incomes. Those two promises are both rated In the Works. (See all of Obama's tax promises.)

[...]

[...]

To pay for these tax cuts, I'll stand up to special interest carve-outs, close corporate loopholes and offshore tax havens, and ask the wealthiest Americans to give back a portion of the Bush tax cuts. It's time for folks like me who make over $250,000 to pay our fair share to keep the American promise alive for our children and grandchildren.

When you're running for four more years of George Bush's policies, it's hard to run on your plans. So you make stuff up. You twist facts, and you don't tell the truth - that's what John McCain has done when it comes to my tax plan. So let's be clear about what we are proposing.

My plan - all together - is a net tax cut. My plan will cut taxes to a smaller share of the economy than they were under President Reagan. Under my plan, income taxes for typical American families will be the lowest that they've been in more than a half century. Everyone in America - everyone - will pay lower taxes than they would under the rates Bill Clinton had in the 1990s. And under my plan, middle class families will get three times as much relief as Senator McCain is offering. In fact, his plan gives absolutely nothing to over 100 million American households.

And I can make a firm pledge: under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase - not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes. My opponent can't make that pledge, and here's why: for the first time in American history, he wants to tax your health benefits Apparently, Senator McCain doesn't think it's enough that your health premiums have doubled, he thinks you should have to pay taxes on them too. That's a $3.6 trillion tax increase on middle class families. That will eventually leave tens of millions of you paying higher taxes. That's his idea of change.

Now I do want to be fair. Senator McCain is offering some tax cuts. He'd spend nearly $2 trillion over a decade in tax breaks for corporations. He would continue the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. His plan gives more than a half million dollars in tax cuts for households making over $2.8 million. That's right - $2.8 million. Now I know that Senator McCain has said that only those making over $5 million a year are rich, so maybe he thinks that folks making $2.8 million are middle class.

[...]