McCain is justifying a special reduced rate for capital gains tax based on 100 million Americans owning stock.

But what he either doesn't know, or doesn't want to admit, is that for 90 million Americans, capital gains will be paid at full income tax rates as ordinary income and not as capital gains.

If you buy stock or mutual funds in your 401K or your IRA, any capital gains will simply increase the balance in your account, and when you withdraw from this retirement account, you pay ordinary income tax on whatever you withdraw. If it is 90% capital gains, it doesn't matter, it is withdrawn as ordinary income.

If you put your money in a Roth IRA, you pay regular income before it goes in, and then any dividends or capital gains are completely tax free, so you don't need a special reduced capital gains tax.

An analysis of Obama's plan says that those will $3M in earnings will pay about a third of a million more in taxes while McCain will cut your taxes. On the other hand, of you earn $35-60K, Obama's plan cuts your taxes by $1000 vs McCain's $300.

So, when McCain says "Obama is going to raise your taxes" you should remind yourself that McCain isn't talking to 110,000,000 working Americans and is only talking to the 1,000,000 who earn more. Somehow, I doubt anyone that McCain is directing his comments at is reading and writing here.

Let me know if I'm wrong and you earn a minimum of $3M annually.

Bill Clinton lowered the capital gains tax rate because he new that investment in the American economy was a good thing. Today it is even more convenient for the middle class to invest in stock thanks to online trading which offers much lower fees on transactions. While you are correct about IRA’s and 401k’s being non taxable income, McCain’s plan to cut the capital gains tax rate will benefit more Americans because it will give them more incentive to purchase stock.

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Well, let's return to the Clinton tax law so we get the great economic growth, better than today's, and a budget surplus, instead of McCain's plan for permanent $370B annual deficits.

How many middle income people do you know with the disposable income to buy individual stocks outside of IRAs or 401ks ?

Get real

Most people in the middle income brackets wouldnt know where to go or what to do to buy stocks, even if all their disposable income was not eaten up by Bush's satagflation. The number of on line transactions by middle income represents at best, low single digits as a % of the daily volume

The confiscation ofd the middle class's assets which has been given to the 3% elite, needs to be returned via a return to the pre 2000 tax code. Anything else is smoke and mirrors

Oh..and by the way...this would INCREASE my tax liabilty by about $4000 a year.
I invest wisely and havent squandered my money on a gun collection and NASCAR tickets, I can handle it

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The capital gains in a tax free account compound. So you earn interest on the gains and on the previous years gains plus interest every year.

I will take my $3M prize in pennies.

By the way, investors seldom have capital gains.

Investment is about earning a return on investment. It isn't about pump and dump. If you don't churn stock, you don't have capital gains.

The special treatment of capital gains now makes company management seek to convert everything into capital gains and never pay dividends as was the norm.

I believe the emphasis on cutting taxes on capital gains and converting everything to capital gains created a real focus on increasing stock price to the exclusion of all other objectives. If the financial transaction produces a capital gains potential in the next six months, and then destroys the company entirely in a year, then go for the capital gains. The classic examples are ENRON, Countrywide, Bearstern.

I would eliminate capital gains taxes and corporate income taxes by flowing all corporate stated earning directly to the individual stockholder. That would eliminate all tax accounting and all securities regulation of corporations other than ensuring all transactions are transparent to stockholders. But this is a different topic.

The top 3% would most likely include people who make 200K a year, why are they considered either rich or elite?

Quite a few actually.

But I suppose it depends on your definition of middle income.

>>>At the time, the reduction probably was a good thing. But Republicans use promises of lower tax rates to buy votes - even when the timing for tax reductions is way off. And when the timing is off, tax reductions lead to silly wild-ass speculation.

Finally, someone gets it.

When people also attack Corporations, they are attacking the middle-class.

Democrats want the USA to be Commie Cuba.

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Bush-lite fooled the American people