What?! The poster needs to substantiate his claim, right? Here, Reid made a claim, so it falls to him to back it up.
This is pretty basic.
Your point is a riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a tortilla. What was your point again?
That we’re all stupid communists who want to punish success…
Oh, horseshit. The people who are clever enough to put a zillion arcane deductions into our tax code can write some kind of exception for actual venture capital.
But the vast, vast majority of stock transactions are just somebody already owning stock selling it to somebody else, and the company doesn’t see a nickel of that money. In fact, if I buy a thousand shares of Apple, it costs Apple money, because they have to start sending me corporate reports and the like.
And even if none of that were true, we KNOW that we had the biggest entrepreneurial boom in history under Clinton, when capital gains were taxed at 28% for most of his term, and 20% after 1997 (and the cut came shortly before the brief recession that righties like to claim was partially responsible for the dismal job growth we had under Bush).
Saying a return to Clinton-era rates would hurt growth is just plain crap. And saying a return to Bush’s fiscal policies would help the economy is completely insane. IMO.
And that somebody has to fell it attractive enough to buy it, right? If it’s not attractive, the stock price drops, which means that the company has less capital at its disposal.
Well, that makes a good point. Well…unless…unless there was something else happening that may have had a large positive effect on the economy. Let’s see…as I look at this computer screen and type on this keyboard and the words are sent to a website somewhere in another state, just WHAT could that be?
OH-the internet boom. The one that made people billions. And imploded just before Bush took office. I find it interesting that this little factor—correction, HUGE factor—is so often left out of the equation.
I’m not arguing that the capital gains rate is now at some magical number from which no deviation can incur. maybe higher is better. Maybe lower is better. I do think that treating it as normal income, the way many posters on the board seem to think it should be treated, is probably a really bad idea.
Sorry. My larger point (not just to you) is that people say that they want the wealthy to pay their “fair share”, but it’s this amorphous thing no one can nail down. Thus my characterization of it as “More. Always more.”
Only if they sell more stock. If the stock price drops, it doesn’t affect their cash on hand at all.
Taxes should be set according to free market principles, based on what the market will bear. There is a sweet spot, a Goldilocks tax rate, that provides the optimum revenue for the commons, without causing business to contract. We should raise the top marginal tax rates until the job creators actually stop creating jobs, then back off a bit. Anything less just leaves cash on the table.
Well, that makes a good point. Well…unless…unless the internet didn’t build itself, and the internet companies didn’t magically appear fully funded.
I find it interesting that anyone of any intelligence can talk about the internet “boom” as if it was totally disassociated from people starting companies, and other people investing in them. And all under the oppressive Clinton taxes that stifled innovation and risk-taking and investment.
And oh yeah, the internet itself grew out of government research and grants. As for the internet boom imploding, I’m no expert, but it seems to me that it’s still pretty popular. Oh wait, do you mean that people bid stocks up too high? Did you forget that you were arguing for policies that encouraged MORE investment in stocks?
Try again.
Just for reference, in the halcyon days of the Eisenhower administration, when men were men, and highways, bridges, dams, libraries, and schools were not falling apart, the top marginal tax rate was over 90%.
And Republicans are saying 38% is unconscionably high.
The larger issue, I think, is that I’m seeing a pattern with Romney that is pretty much boilerplate Teflon Guy, and if or when the shit truly hits the fan, he simply lacks the stones to do the right thing. Having that weak of a POTUS isn’t my cup of tea, especially considering who’d be pulling his strings.
I am merely saying that comparing Democratic outrage, manufactured or real, at the Republicans for wanting Obama out of office at any cost has nothing to do with whether or not Romney should release his tax returns. As for sleazy Dem policies, please note again that, as implied above, I don’t think Reid should have said anything without evidence to back it up.
As for wanting Obama out of the White House, of course there is nothing reprehensible about that. And while I do think that Obama would be superior to Romeny, I am making no objective assumptions and I don’t know where you got that from. You are certainly right that it’s just my opinion.
As others have mentioned, Romney probably literally has thousands of deductions and all are probably legal. If he releases the returns, the Dems will pour over every item. Anything that could possibly be questionable would be declared to be illegal and Romney a tax cheat. “Questions” will be asked over everything with negative spin being put on every single item.
And every bit of it will be used to confirm that Romney is an ultra rich guy that is out of touch with regular Americans. (e.g. Romney spent $XXX on health care in 2007! That’s more than most Americans make in a year, but he doesn’t feel you should have access to health care. blah, blah, blah)
It’s a losing proposition, and his campaign has made a calculated decision to take the hit on not release the returns instead of taking a thousand hits on every little exaggerated detail.
If that were true he’d have released 0 returns, rather than one and a half.
Its a requirement of the job application for president. We need to know who we are electing to the most powerful position in the world. Not releasing the records is wrong and the country shouldn’t even consider his campaign whatsoever legitimate until he does. I’m sorry that Republicans are being forced to defend him and minimize the importance of this, but he did it to you, were just pursuing due diligence in demanding he come clean. Making it uncomfortable for him not to is absolutely necessary to compel his appropriate behavior.
After listening to Rachel maddow dissect it here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#48497159
She makes several salient points. One is that Mitt has a history of telling big lies, and getting caught later by document releases, TWICE previously.
Once, he stated he jointed filed taxes in Massachusetts (so he could meet the residency requirement), and after many firm claims, and “you’ll just have to trust me on this”, the returns were discovered to indicate Mittens filed in another state only. He 'retroactively" filed in Mass. Then there was the question about when he left Bain, recently, and he lied his ass off about that, too. I’ll bet one of the reasons he doesn’t want to release returns is the possiblity it will show income from Bain long after he claimed to have left (I think he’s still working on ‘retroactively’ quitting Bain to fit the original timeframe he claimed.)
I think Mitt has a lying problem. And I’m not sure how he wiggles out of this without some damage.
The Maddow piece is really excellent, I’m not sure it is the same segment someone mentioned upthread or not.
Not sure I trust Maddow, given that she lies more often than most politicians do.
And I already busted her on one, the Bain thing. That’s already been well settled. I don’t know about where Romney actually filed his taxes or what he said about where he filed his taxes, but I’m certainly not going to take her word for it.
Well, your preogative of course, but she backs up her claims with relevent newspaper quotations pretty well. So, you don’t think he has a problem, and is with-holding his taxes due to some principaled stand, which he discovered after demanding Ted kennedy and the husband of one of his other opponents release theirs?
He’s withholding his taxes because there’s embarrassing information in there. I’m not sure how she’s accusing him of lying about his tax returns, given that he hasn’t really said anything about what’s in them.
Maddow = 4 False and 0 Pants-on-Fire
Romney = 26 False and 13 Pants-On-Fire ( PolitiFact | Mitt Romney )