On Fri, 15 Aug 2008, Doug Henwood wrote (apropos an article in the WSJ on by Jason Furman and Austin Goolsby on Obama's tax plan):
> cap gains rate lower than Reagan's! same as Bush proposed in 2001!
The odd thing about both those statements is that that same level represents a substantial raise in the cap gains tax, from the present 15% to 20% -- along with a raise in the income taxes on the rich ($250,000+) back to Clinton's 39%. The devil is in the tax details of course, but on their face both of those adjustments are progressive.
Fubar and Goober seem to be basically telling stretchers here to sell the plan to businessmen. If Bush "proposed" this 20% rate in 2001, it must have been buried in a throwaway speech, because (a) that was already the rate when he came in, and (b) the first thing he did in 2001 was lower the rate from 20% to 15%. So maybe he once said "Hey, I'm open to leaving it the same if we cut other things more" but call that a proposal is a stretcher.
And the one about "a cap gains rate lower than Reagan" is also dubious (but after trying to comprehend and evaluate all the details I've decided it's just too boring to argue about).
I'm with you that ain't epochal change. But it is change in the right direction. IMHO the nut here is that he is proposing raising both the cap gains tax and the income tax on the rich at the same time, both substantially. And what these two foobs are doing here is saying everything they can in a fatcat forum to fog that fact over for fast-skimming businessmen. This isn't the unveiling of the truth by looking in the business press. It's witnessing a fog machine aimed at someone else.
Now in a progressive forum, it's perfectly fair to point out that all Obama is proposing here is going back to what we had at the end of Clinton era, and less than we had earlier in it, so it's no great new dawn. And it's exactly the same as we would have gotten from Hillary Clinton. But in itself, it's a step in the right direction and not a sellout.
Michael