Re: That's it! I'm voting for McCain

This is John Galt's brain on drugs:
> Governor Swill wrote
>> I suspect we may have found a point of basic disagreement.  Imo, ALL
>> income should be treated the same way for taxation.  The travesty of
>> cap gains tax rates is the reason why, as a percentage of income, so
>> many of the wealthy actually pay less taxes than working people.
>
>That's correct, but there's a big "BUT" associated with that fact. In
fact, 
>more than one:
>
>1) The capital gains tax also smacks people who aren't rich, but are
doing 
>their best to invest wisely for their retirement. High capital gains 
>taxation virtually insures that middle america will rely more heavily on 
>their Social Security than they otherwise would.

So?  Leveling the tax rates isn't about "soaking the rich", it's about
flattening the tax system.  Income is income.  Period.

>2) The tax distorts the markets negatively. When stocks and funds are
going 
>up, all is good. When stocks and funds are going down, after an increase,

>tax consideration lead people to hold onto their equities longer than
they 
>should, incurring greater losses.

I don't see how that's a negative distortion nor do I see why holding
investments longer is a bad thing except to those who make their
living off trade commissions, that is, talking people into selling
something now for a quick buck rather than holding the investment for
the long term.  In fact, long term cap gains could be given a tax
break since that would typically affect the homeowner who home is
their primary investment for retirement.

>3) The market went on a 20% tear after cap gains taxes were reduced. That

>will likely be reversed if they are increased, with dire impact on
pension 
>funds, retirement accounts, and the like.

Again, so?  What're people gonna do if their investment income is
taxed at the same rate as their time card?  Not invest?  Taxing work
at a higher rate than market speculation hasn't stopped people from
getting jobs has it?  Why would it stop them from investing?

>Isn't it enough that the government has diluted our currency to the point

>where we are prisoners in our own country?

You're starting to sound like a rich capitalist now.  We're far from
prisoners in our own country.  To start with there's enough variety in
this country that you could take a two week vacation every year for
thirty years and still not have visited every state or worthwhile
tourist stop.  And the problem with exchange rates and travel affects
mostly countries that use euros.  The Canadian dollar is within a
nickel of what it was ten years ago.  There's Mexico, Brazil,
Argentina, Chile and Peru not to mention several Caribbean islands
with currencies that are so much cheaper than the dollar that it would
take many years of the dollar falling against them to make much
difference.  Hell, most countries with low value currencies have their
value pegged to the dollar in the first place so their values have
sunk along with ours.  We're hardly prisoners in our own country just
because a trip to France has got frightfully expensive.

> A drop in equity markets of that scope wipes out the ability to people
> to retire, to buy homes, and simply decreases disposable income.

My objection to this runaway capitalism is that it leads to the people
who are making the most money aren't the ones doing the work or
producing anything.

> None of this is good, just to keep Warren 
>Buffet from being outtaxed by his administrative assistant.

Nonsense, every word.  Income is income and we'd all be better off if
that income was taxed all at the same rate.

>A smarter man might suggest that the cap gains tax rates be indexed. If
an 
>individual has capital gains over some amount, take him or her to the 28%

>level. For everyone else, at least leave them at 15, preferably eliminate

>them altogether.

Progressive taxation again.  Better to just score all income as income
and charge the same rates.

>>  The US could probably do away with progressive income tax or at least
>> greatly flatten the rates if the code wasn't stuffed with all sorts of
>> loopholes and exceptions.
>
>What loopholes? Mortgage interest deductions?

Taxing people on income derived from production at higher rates than
income derived from investment is a bad thing.  It penalizes
production and induces a cycle of making money with money for the sole
purpose of creating more money.  There is no other end product.

Here are some examples of how cap gains treatment damages the economy.

Guy buys a house with peeling paint and crabgrass.  He cleans up the
yard with selective use of herbicides and a re seeding.  Some trimming
up a bit and the lawn looks first class.  A coat of paint in the rooms
and on the outside and suddenly the house he picked up for 100K can be
sold for 130k.  That's 30k in profit on an expenditure of a couple of
thousand.  Now, the profit is not the issue, the market bears the
prices the market can bear.  My problem is that when a renter goes
looking for their first house, it's going to cost them a third more
and almost all that extra money is going into the pocket of somebody
who's going to be taxed on that profit at a lower rate than the
prospective homeowner is on his salary.

We've seen the housing market folding in on itself.  Bush has spent
years bragging about how his policies have got more people,
particularly minorities and working people, into homes than ever
before.  Trouble is, all those gains are lost.  All that extra home
owner****p is gone and housing values are actually less than they were
when he took office.  Millions of people are in dire straits and
millions have seen their credit ruined.

And for what?  So a few house flippers can make some money that isn't
going to be taxed.  Not only do they get to skip tax on income, they
inflate the price of homes.  I'm not talking about buying a dump,
putting considerable work in it and reselling it, I'm talking about
the real estate flippers who can drop 5k on a house they grabbed at an
auction and ended up with a profit margin of a third.  It was
speculation that created the housing bubble as much as loan practices
and both were fueled by the fact that a guy working every day for a
living wage pays a higher percentage of tax on his income than
somebody artificially inflating markets.

Swill
-- 
Gobama!  Gobama!  Gobama!  Gobama!