[Alberta's Child]

Jack Kemp is smoking something if he thinks the stock market collapse is the result of taxation and over-regulation. People paid idiotic prices for shares in companies that had never mde any money and were no indication that they ever would.

If anything, the capital gains tax cuts were actually bad for the stock market in one respect. Because of the enormous spread between the top income tax rates (38%+) and the top capital gains tax rates (20%), people had a financial incentive to ignore income-producing assets in favor of assets that may not produce income but had the potential for growth. Examples of the latter include not only growth stocks but real estate as well -- which is why, incidentally, the run-up in the stock market (espeically in growth stocks) was accompanied a boom in real estate.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

the capital gains tax cuts were actually bad for the stock market

. . . it's good for the economy to give a tax break for selling a stock that's a loser, and to penalize the taxpayer for selling a stock that's a winner?

A capital-gains tax is a tax on anticipated future dividends. You only pay it if you sell the stock.