Barack Obama tells Daily News how he'd lead us through the economic meltdown
Posted on 10/12/2008 12:05:56 PM PDT by wagglebee
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain is considering rolling out a new comprehensive economic package to tackle the U.S. financial crisis, one of his closest supporters said on Sunday.
"I think it goes along the lines that now is the time to lower tax rates for investors, capital gains tax, dividend tax rates, to make sure that we can get the economy jump-started," said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
McCain, 72, was in the Washington area and off the campaign trail on Sunday, prepared for his debate on Wednesday against Democratic rival Barack Obama.
That debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, will be the last of three face-offs between the two candidates before the November 4 election and will give McCain one more chance to reverse his recent slide in the polls.
Obama, 47, opened a 6-point lead over McCain in a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Sunday. Other polls, too, show the Democratic senator from Illinois pulling away, and s some give him a lead in double digits.
Much of Obama's improvement has been credited to the public thinking he is much better at handling the economy than McCain. Obama has criticized McCain as being erratic on his economic proposals, jumping from one idea to another.
A new plan would be designed to help McCain shore up his economic credentials. Politico, the online political news report, said more than 30 ideas had been put forward but there was no final package, although whatever developed was likely to include at least temporary tax cuts for capital gains and dividends.
"It will be a very comprehensive approach to jump-start the economy, by allowing capital to be formed easier in America by lowering taxes," Graham said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Only if people choose to equate dropping 700B into a black hole in banks with allowing corporate profits to be put to work by taxing them less. The media won't help of course, but McCain needs to make his case directly because they'll twist his case and screw him no matter what he proposes.
I think if we were in April, proposing the fair tax might be a good idea, but we are 26 days away. It would take at least two months to explain it to the American people.
Yes and no.
The Fair Tax is much to easy for opponents to spin in short order.
You've got to keep in mind that a major percentage of voters DON'T PAY TAXES, if they hear that they will start having to pay a sales tax of 20+% without a careful explanation of rebates you will lose them.
The voters who already know about the Fair Tax or could immediately see its benefit probably aren't voting for Obama to start with.
Well, my friends, I wonder.. Hope it doesn’t end up being more talk about “reaching across the aisle”... that message is not working John.
Great idea!
If McCain has a new economic plan, a better plan and one that will actually work, he MUST get it out there NOW! The economy is what has the attention of voters. Get the plan out there Mac and DO IT NOW!
I agree, it's been decades since mainstream America has paid as much attention to the economy as they are right now.
Apparently, the inverse relationship between capital gains tax rates and tax revenue — when you lower the first, you increase the second — was pointed out to Hussein Obama by none other than Charles Gibson during an interview. Hussein’s response was something like the following: “I know but I don’t care. The point of the capital gains tax is to level the disparity between the wealthy and the not-wealthy so that everything is ‘fair’.” In other words, the purpose of taxation for Hussein is to cultivate and enforce egalitarianism.
Question for Hussein: Since you regard taxation and redistribution of wealth as a matter of creating “fairness” in a society, irrespective of the revenues it might create, does this mean that you regard societies such as Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea, as inherently more fair than a society like the United States?
I know his answer already, but I’d love to hear his evasions.
you don’t understand. Democrats don’t claim they are for making the economy better. They believe in govt jobs not the free market. All they have to do is redistribute wealth to make people feel better. That’s easy for them to do.
Republicans on the other hand must understand the economy in order to make it grow. They have to understand foreign policy in order to support a war. They have to practice family values before they can talk about why they are important for America.
Remember: being a liberal is the most gutless decision you can make. But that means we are held to a higher standard.
You betcha! LOL
a lot of us conservatives don’t like the fair tax either. Then again we don’t like the bailout or the Hillary mortgage idea and many of mccain’s other ideas and we’ll still vote for mccain over obama.
1. Effective 10/13/2008 through 12/31/2009, the holding period for long-term capital gains treatment is six months, and applies to all sales from the above dates.
2. Long-term CG rates are halved, to a max of 10%, through 12/31/2009.
That should free up a few trillion in trapped assets, and bring in some cash from the sidelines. And it took less than 100 words, vs. 450 pages of regulation and pork.
yeah we can’t dump a major tax change at this stage in the game. he needs modest but effective changes. he should have run with a major tax overhaul from the beginning.
Just like Gramnesty, a 100% like of understanding of no confidence. Some businesses need to fail and some people need to go to jail, prove to people this is not going to happen again. Take the fox out of the hen house, fire paulson and his stooges.
Fixed if for you.
A better question would be why does a multi-millionaire who believes in the redistribution of wealth all his half-brother to live in a hut in Africa on a dollar a month?
Actually the whole statement is nothing more than rewarding the people who got us in this mess.
You just insulted 2/3 of the working citizens of this nation who are investors.
I'm not crazy about it and I don't think it has any real chance.
Ireland has seen incredible growth simply from slashing corporate tax rates and while their personal income tax rates are somewhat high, they are low by European standards.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.