Obama will extend the 10, 15, 25 and 28 percent tax brackets while restoring the Clinton administration's 36 and 39.6 percent brackets at the upper end. Obama will also provide a $1,000 energy rebate to American families? Taxing Angel investors more will not deter their entrepreneurial spirit. Taxes are not punitive. The belief they are and the refusal to maintain infrastructure on top of an insistence on a huge military constantly in some fight and nobody paying for it is why we are in such a mess.

Tax reform involves closing loopholes and lowering the rates. But Obama proposes to increase the rates and create new loopholes through the tax credits. Tax credit is not a tax break. Although it may be different for corporate taxes, in personal taxes it counts as paid taxes, and can allow people to get more than they paid in.

Politicians spent money they did not have. Lenders tricked people into buying home they could not afford and some folks knew they could not afford them and bought them anyway.

Goolsbee, in particular, has taken direct aim at the conservative movement's biggest economic policy achievement of the past three decades: the sharp reduction in marginal tax rates, especially the top personal income tax rate. He is a leader in the liberal onslaught against the Laffer curve, producing research to show that income tax cuts "for high-income taxpayers likely gave windfalls to those whose incomes were already sharply rising because of broader market forces." Goolsbee, who is in his late 30s, met Obama through their shared University of Chicago network. He is a political novice on national economic policy issues, but is firmly in the capitalist US mainstream.

McCain does not lie very good. Word is out that the bail out is going to cost 2.5 trillion and the congress does not want the people to know and panic. McCain gave a speech today which was still focused on tax cuts. On the other hand, Obama is discussing the things that people care about, their homes, their jobs, and their retirement. McCain opposed this because Bush threatened to veto the bill and John wanted to be seen standing at the side of his good friend GW. If that bill had been enacted this current crisis- started by Fan and Fred- would have been greatly minimized or even avoided.

McCain is overstating how much small business income would be affected by Sen. Obama's tax plan. McCain's justices are likely to join the conservative crusade against the power of Congress. They could be expected to strike down, or sharply limit, federal power to protect clean air and water; ensure food and drug safety; safeguard workers; and prohibit discrimination against women and minorities. McCain also appeared to allude to recent statements from Rep. John Murtha, D-Johnstown, in which he had suggested that Western Pennsylvania was a racist area, and, after apologizing for that, noted that the region had past marked by "red neck" traditions.

Secondly, the growth in GDP was primarily fueled by consumer spending made possible by taking out equity mortgages against rising home values -- helping to fuel the housing bubble. A secondary stimulus was massive government spending, by a Republican-controlled Congress no less, on a par with LBJ's Great Society days. Second, no one below $250,000 would be affected. This is a new rate.

Senator McCain's top economic advisor actually said the other day that they have no plan to invest in college affordability because we can't have a giveaway to every special interest. Well I don't think the young people of America are a special interest -- they are the future of this country. Senator McCain's tax cuts would primarily benefit those with very high incomes, almost all of whom would receive large tax cuts that would, on average, raise their after-tax incomes by more than twice the average for all households. Many fewer households at the bottom of the income distribution would get tax cuts and those whose taxes fall would, on average, see their after-tax income rise much less.

Yes, I am sure he will get input from other economic advisers but ultimately his top economic adviser will tell Obama which way to go. Otherwise why hire Furman as his top economic adviser.

Copyright (c) 2008 Dock J Murphy