Obama Would Raise Capital Gains Tax

Yesterday morning, I predicted a Barack Obama Administration would make you and I less wealthy. 

Wasting no time to prove me right, yesterday on CNBC, Barack Obama said he wanted to raise the capital gains tax.  

"I haven't given a firm number," he said. "Here's my belief, that we can't go back to some of the, you know, confiscatory rates that existed in the past that distorted sound economics. And I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton, which was the 28 percent…. My guess would be it would be significantly lower than that. I think that we can have a capital gains rate that is higher than 15 percent."

... I probably don't have to tell you this is exactly the wrong direction in which we should go.  Raising taxes during an economic downturn is insanity.  Of course, Obama will attempt to argue this is a tax for the rich.  In truth, it's a tax on anyone who is an investor.  Increasing the tax, of course, discourages investment in our economy (just what a struggling economy needs, right?) ... 

Rudy Giuliani's tax plan, which, at the time, I praised, promised to lower the capitol gains and dividend rate to 10% and index to inflation. 

I argued Rudy should have gone further and completely eliminated the capitol gains tax.  I still believe that's true.  Not only should we not raise the tax -- we should eliminate it.

By the way, ABC's Jake Tapper has an excellent post up on this ...