economics and political question
So I have a question for all you politics junkies out there...
I suppose I have been somewhat of an Obama fan. I originally was a bit of a Hillary supporter for the sole reason that I would like to see Bill back in the white house in some capacity, for entertainment purposes. Hillary has disappointed me during the course of the campaign however, and I've been steadily turning more and more towards Obama... more because I like his style than any appreciation for his actual policy. At this point I think the war is gonna go where it is gonna go regardless of the wishes of the president, and I don't really care overmuch about most of the other key emotional issues.
However, I just heard about the proposed tax plans of the two candidates. Hillary's sounds like a complete mess, so I wont really get into that. Obama's, however, had me sold until he started talking about seriously raising the capital gains and dividends tax. I understand that this is a bit of a political move, since rich people do a lot of investing, and Obama is sucking up to the rich-people-hating crowd... but practically, how is this kind of move in any way a good thing? I'm pretty sure that if my dad was toying with the idea of voting for Obama this time around, he would change his mind as soon as he saw this.... and I'm guessing it is going to have the same effect throughout the moderate republican population.
I mean, particularly in todays economic environment, we WANT people to invest more, yes? I always thought it would be a decent idea to eliminate the capital gains tax altogether. I understand this introduces a few critical loophole issues that would need to be patched up through careful tax legislation... but I figure the benefit to the economy would be worth letting a few rich guys get away with tax evasion. That and I've heard some pretty good arguments about capital gains tax effectively taxing people TWICE for the same money, as the cost of the stock itself already reflects corporate tax.
Anyway, any thoughts from you Obama fans out there?
I suppose I have been somewhat of an Obama fan. I originally was a bit of a Hillary supporter for the sole reason that I would like to see Bill back in the white house in some capacity, for entertainment purposes. Hillary has disappointed me during the course of the campaign however, and I've been steadily turning more and more towards Obama... more because I like his style than any appreciation for his actual policy. At this point I think the war is gonna go where it is gonna go regardless of the wishes of the president, and I don't really care overmuch about most of the other key emotional issues.
However, I just heard about the proposed tax plans of the two candidates. Hillary's sounds like a complete mess, so I wont really get into that. Obama's, however, had me sold until he started talking about seriously raising the capital gains and dividends tax. I understand that this is a bit of a political move, since rich people do a lot of investing, and Obama is sucking up to the rich-people-hating crowd... but practically, how is this kind of move in any way a good thing? I'm pretty sure that if my dad was toying with the idea of voting for Obama this time around, he would change his mind as soon as he saw this.... and I'm guessing it is going to have the same effect throughout the moderate republican population.
I mean, particularly in todays economic environment, we WANT people to invest more, yes? I always thought it would be a decent idea to eliminate the capital gains tax altogether. I understand this introduces a few critical loophole issues that would need to be patched up through careful tax legislation... but I figure the benefit to the economy would be worth letting a few rich guys get away with tax evasion. That and I've heard some pretty good arguments about capital gains tax effectively taxing people TWICE for the same money, as the cost of the stock itself already reflects corporate tax.
Anyway, any thoughts from you Obama fans out there?