In a weekend interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday, Mr. Obama was asked again about raising capital gains rates. Though still leaving open the chance of a higher rate, he suggested "we might go back up to 20" (a number Hillary Clinton has proposed), because "I'm mindful that we've got to keep our capital gains tax to a point where we can actually get more revenue."
This again, huh? It's like that line in Godfather III. I try to get out, and you keep pulling me back in.
As long as we stipulate that the Laffer effects of capital gains tax rates are a bit unique and affect behavior differently than changes in, say, the top income rates. (Shouldn't be hard to do.)
But I see this as more of a political statement. He's throwing a bone to the investor class who just finished watching Steve Forbes and his merry band of Wall Street players.
When he's in front of a Democratic audience in Indiana, CG tax rates won't come up except in a populist appeal to increase fairness in the tax code, i.e. return taxes on the rich to Clinton-era levels.
When he's in front of a Democratic audience in Indiana, CG tax rates won't come up except in a populist appeal to increase fairness in the tax code, i.e. return taxes on the rich to Clinton-era levels.
Before this interview, it was pre-Clinton era rates that he wanted. You know, because it's only fair, and that's what fiscal and economic policy are about.
