All I can say is, I'm clearly in the wrong business.
When Clinton was refusing to release her tax returns, there was a lot of speculation that she was hiding something from the voters. Now I wonder if she wasn't simply trying to keep competitors from flooding into the market in search of excess returns.
Impressive indeed. Given this and Michelle Obama's comments about how they were barely scraping by on $300-$500k/year combined before Sen. Obama's book deal came through, I guess it's not surprising that both pledged to keep taxes the same or cut them for those making less than $200k/year last night. (How this does work when Sen. Obama has pledged to lift the payroll tax cap? Is the $200k only for couples, or does he plan to tax the income $95k-$200k and rebate it, or will this tax increase somehow not count because it's a payroll tax, even though it's not going to go to extra benefits?)
Sen. Obama's claim that even if cutting capital gains taxes increased revenue, he'd raise them out of the principle of making people pay their fair share was interesting.
I'm not sure how either will come close to making their fiscal promises without going after the lucrative band of income of households between $100k and $200k, but that's politics for you.
John Thacker:
How do you propose we pay down the deficit? You do realize that's why the dollar is tanking, right?
Just when I thought JKC couldn't look any more ignorant...
JKC,
You might as well have blamed the dollar's decline on atmospheric CO2 levels, and you would have been just as correct. Good work.
Milton Friedman's Ghost:
So what do you think is causing the decline of the dollar?
Where's McCain's tax return? FEC reports? Medical records?
Why is this just about the (D) candidates?
Megan, you and Obama are in the same business--professional writers. Obama's income comes from book royalties.
No, Megan, don't give up your day job. As a libertarian -- whether lite, lipstick, or hardcore -- you're better off at anything else than professional politics. Plus, we'd miss you.
I don't mind the scumbags in politics making money off their silly books and speeches, that's the market at work. If people want to pay for that, why stop them? I do mind the scummy pols taking my money and spending it for their own frivolous purposes, however. Rather than debating how to tax these people's incomes more, why not try to figure out how to restrain their unrestrained grabbing of the fruits of my labor?
How about making all tax payments voluntary? Let there be a real market for government services. I'd rather trust the judgment and conscience of the American people not to free-ride -- Americans are good people -- than leave it to the beasts I know, i.e., self-promoting professional pols. Their only incentives are to overspend and overtax, which they do with abandon.
I'd prefer to live with some free-riding from non-payers of public services than accept unbounded majoritarianism, which I know leads to excess burdens on all tax payers. The overbloated fat of federal, state, and local spending is the real scourge of our system, and gives democracy a deservedly bad reputation.
To turn Yogi Berra's classic around: if people don't want to go to the ballpark, why force them?
OMG! :Obama and Hillary make lots of monies! Why ahsn't this been in the news the past month?!!?!?!?!?!
With incomes like Hillary Clinton's (who, according to her only recently joined the middle class), and Barack Obama's it's hard to imagine either candidate arguing about being an elite. Overlooked however, is Hillary’s history of lies and unethical behavior that goes back farther, and goes much deeper than anyone realizes: http://theseedsof9-11.com
JKC-
So what do you think is causing the decline of the dollar?
Our Gov't is currently transferring $1 trillion/yr in "unearned dollars" to "old people"- and we will be borrowing 1/2 of that overseas every year- until we choose not to...