Monday, November 3, 2008

Is Obama Swiping the Tax Cut Issue?

Voters seem to think he’s the Ronald Reagan tax-cutter of the 2008 election.

Wouldn’t it be the height of irony if Barack Obama wins this election as the Ronald Reagan tax-cutter? His tax plans are severely flawed and his campaign narrative to support them is all wrong. And yet a recent Rasmussen poll shows that 31 percent of voters believe Obama is the real tax cutter, while only 11 percent choose McCain.

Believe it or not, Obama seems to have swiped the tax-cut issue from the Republican party. How can this be?

Well, for almost two years Obama has talked about cutting taxes for 95 percent of the people. McCain has no such record. And even though McCain has launched a strong Joe the Plumber investor-class tax-cutting surge in the last days of the campaign, it may not be enough to significantly impact Tuesday’s voting results.

This is bad news since Obama has some pretty strange views on taxes. Just look at his recent explanation for the decline in third-quarter GDP. He calls it “a direct result of the Bush administration’s trickle-down, Wall Street first, Main Street last policies that John McCain has embraced for the last eight years and plans to continue for the next four.”

Is Obama really blaming the Bush tax cuts for this recession?

After the bursting of the tech bubble and the 9/11 attacks, George Bush lowered tax rates across-the-board for individuals and investors. For five years the stock market rallied without interruption -- the longest bull market without a correction in post-WWII history -- while the economy expanded for six years, a bit longer than the average post-war recovery cycle.

And Obama wants folks to believe that tax cuts caused this downturn? Not the credit shock? Not the Obama-supported government mandate to sell unaffordable homes to low-income people and the pressure on Fannie and Freddie to securitize these loans? Not the oil shock?

No self-respecting Keynesian would buy into this. Yet Obama was at it again in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, saying, “It’s not change to come up with a tax plan that doesn’t give a penny of relief to more than 100 million middle-class Americans.”

Regrettably, not even John McCain has contradicted this. But the facts speak otherwise.

For example, the nonpartisan Tax Foundation says the Bush tax cuts -- which McCain would maintain -- provided substantially more relief than middle-class Clinton-era tax rates: A single earner making $30,000 will pay $2,756 under 2008 Bush tax law compared with $3,157.50 under Clinton tax law (in 1999). That’s a larger Bush tax cut by 8.7 percent. A married couple earning $50,000 will pay $4,012 under Bush compared with $5,085 under Clinton. That’s a bigger Bush tax cut by 21 percent.

So the facts of a middle-class tax cut are far different from what Obama claims. Obama also says his tax rates will be below those of Ronald Reagan. Wrong. Obama will raise the top rate to 39.6 percent, whereas Reagan left taxpayers with only two brackets of 15 and 28 percent.

Incidentally, the income cap for Social Security and Medicare taxes was about $42,000 when Reagan left office, compared with $104,000 today and the threat that Obama will raise that cap significantly.

It’s also worth noting that the Reagan tax-reform bill of 1986 mistakenly allowed the capital-gains tax rate to move up to 28 percent from 20 percent. Many believe this was a significant factor in the stock market crash of 1987.

Similarly, Obama intends to raise the cap-gains tax rate from 15 to at least 20 percent. It’s a risky move. Of course, Obama says only rich people will pay the higher cap-gains rate. But the reality is that a cap-gains tax hike will raise the after-tax cost of all capital, which will depress the future value of all equity assets.

McCain has recently proposed a reduction in the capital-gains tax rate from 15 to 7.5 percent. With 100 million-plus investors out there, and nearly two of every three votes in national elections being made by shareholders, this is right on target. Last Friday, McCain told me in an interview that a “low capital-gains tax is probably the greatest incentive for investment that we have in America today.

In the frenetic final hours of the campaign McCain is also talking up his corporate tax cut, which would be a tremendous boost to plunging stock prices since corporate profits are the mother’s milk of stocks. Indeed, McCain’s overall tax-cut plan is far more powerful than Obama’s when it comes to creating jobs and stimulating economic growth. But his marketing effort appears to be too little, too late.

These things do, however, have a way of balancing out: If Obama and the Democrats go on a tax-hiking spree to penalize successful earners and investors, they will pay for it dearly in 2010 and beyond.

59 comments:

Intrade said...

red said :

    Kudlow you are a sorry upper class hack, not an economist. This end of your anti-tax jihad is near, and you can't bear to think of the possibility that you have been off base for the past 40 years.

Intrade said...

Toby Ziegler said :

    You're embarrassing yourself, red. You have nothing to actually say, so you settle for venom. Formulate some sort of cohesive argument before you presume that someone else might be interested in what you have to say. Thanks. Meanwhile, empirical evidence will continue to mount against you.

Intrade said...

mark said :

    He's not an economist, he's the CEO of a consulting firm. It shows.

Intrade said...

mark said :

    although there are certainly real economists arguing this position, kudlow doesn't utilize them in making this (rather shaky) case.

most real economists would probably disagree, though. recent data (nabbed from wiki) shows them breaking 60-40 democrat in '06.

Intrade said...

hmp said :

    Toby, red embarrassed himself? You say the empirical evidence "continues to mount against you," but you are the one without specifics, and the empirical evidence (i.e. the worst stock market crash and financial crisis in a century) mounts against YOU.

you want specifics?

Look at this chart:

http://lanekenworthy.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/slowincomegrowth-figure1-version1.png

Reaganomics has been totally discredited. We have had 25 years of wealth redistribution to the rich from everyone else. Even libertarian Alan Greenspan has had to admit his world view was simply wrong. Deregulation is a disaster.

Between Reagan and Bush I, the national debt more than quadrupled. Bush II doubled it again. Our economy has left the tracks in a way not seen since 1929 (the prior gilded age, and the last time there was such a skew in wealth distribution).

Unfortunately, everyone will have to pay the price for the sins of the greedy few.

Is that specific enough for you, Toby?

Intrade said...

eagleyes said :

    This election is not about taxes. It's about leadership and integrity and restoring the American way of life. It's about transparency in government and ending illegal foreign wars. And most of all it's about competence in government.

Intrade said...

abcdefg said :

    Fannie Mae Obama is a hypocrite. The very same anything goes laissez faire attitude he accuses the GOP of his very people used to run Fannie Mae into the ground. Anything goes...if you had a pulse then you had a loan.

The real estate market topped in July of 2005. The majority of the riskiest loans were in one three and five year adjustables...whose ability to reset depended on stable home prices. When those adjustables hit the financial system and couldn't reset...the result was predictable.

Obama the laissez faire Fannie Maeist. Fannie Mae's stock chart speaks for itself.

Lucky McCain and the GOP is too stupid to explain this. They'd rather go after Bill Ayers...serves them right.

Intrade said...

billy said :

    Politicians like to spend. Democrats tax and spend and if they are lucky(Clinton) the strong economy can still produce a surplus.
Republicans like to spend too(Stevens et al) but don't like to tax--so they borrow and spend and eventually the Government credit runs out leading to market instability.Reagan Oct 19 1987 crash with Dow down about 23% in one day and now Bush debacle are results. Both due to bad fiscal policy.There are other differing factors in each case-----but I think bad fiscal management in both cases(also Hoover in 1929 et seq.) is a major factor.

Intrade said...

Damon said :

    abcdefg's comment is indicative of the ignorance of the financial collapse. To make it simple to the rest of us, a sports betting analogy: rather than blaming the gambler for betting too much, abcdefg is blaming the football team for not covering the spread.

Sure Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were problematic but the problems these two agencies created (along with the problems of the entire subprime lending industry) were CONTAINABLE. What made this situation a disaster was the credit derivatives market where speculators placed bets on the mortgage market and the banks sold with no real thought to risk control. Once people started defaulting, the triggers in the credit derivatives activated and the banks that took the short position lost big.

On top of this, Bush's SEC chariman Chris Cox removed the uptick rule for short selling which led to an increase in volatility in the equity markets and the wild swings that we see. This removal rule favors hedge funds at the expense of "the everyday investor".

As a footnote, this situation can also be blamed on Bush in that he signed in to law legislation making it tougher to file bankruptcy. Because of this, rather than filing bankruptcy and working out a payment plan, people simply started abandoning property when they couldn't pay.

It's easy to lay blame at the feet of those who can't pay so long as they are individuals. However, if a big bank or a government can't pay its debts, we do a 180 and look to bail them out. Hypocritical to say the least.

Intrade said...

Steve said :

    Kudlow is an ill-informed partisan hack. He doesn't belong on this site. Zero original thought, poor reasoning ability, poor information base. The man has passed his sell-by date.

Intrade said...

As if u didn't know said :

    Mr Kudlow, our taxes should be a shared responsibility between groups. People can google the "GAO accounting report on corporate
taxes" and see that Corporations often time do not pay their fair share of taxes. Especially foreign Corporation at times have zero tax liability.
I pose a question for every one.
Suppose a chinese toy manufacturer that has the toys made in china
and then sells it in USA and then takes the profits back to china.
That chinese company adds very few jobs in America and takes the wealth out of this country. McCain wants to cut that Corp. tax rate from 35 to 25. How does that help America?
Here is another question about capital gains tax.
I don't have a problem of cutting capital gains for corp. or venture capitalist that actually create jobs in America.
The individuals and others that create wealth by manipulating the market, by shorting stocks, by creating these so called side bets, that do nothing but destroy the trust in the market, and create no jobs. Why should these entities pay a low capital gains taxs than an average citizen pays in taxes on what they earn?
Obama's plan is right about giving tax cuts to companies that actually create jobs, under Obama's plan the capital gains tax can be zero if you are creating jobs.
Obama's plan is just and right for America.

Intrade said...

Lawence Is Woeful said :

    Joseph Stiglitz, the 2001 Nobel Prize winner in Economics has said Obama is the much better choice for the economy. Stiglitz said he was sold after he heard Obama give an impressive speech on the economy. McCain, ("Big Mac" to Larry), was quoted as saying "The fundamentals of the economy are strong" just before the start of the financial crisis and has admitted other times his strength is not in economic matters. Yet Kudlow refers to Obama's plans as dumb and reveres the wise "Big Mac". Kudlow, because he's nothing but a pitiful partisan hack, loses all credibility in his columns. Again InTrade editors: Read these posts in Kudlow columns and see how little respect he gets. Dump him. You can do so much better.

Intrade said...

the taxman said :

    for those that favor taxing and spreading the wealth around i would like one of you to make an argument for either HIGHER or LOWER takeout at pari-mutuel race tracks. how can anyone argue in favor of higher takeout, it directly results in a lower total handle, keeps the big players away and ultimately busts out the little guy.

Intrade said...

Obama's Economic Advisors.. said :

    Mr Kudlow, Rather than posing your comments on Intrade.com, perhaps you should take this tax/economy issues directly to Obama's top economic advisors: Paul Volcker, Bob Rubin, Larry Summers to name a few. Perhaps you can throw in Warren Buffet there as well. Obama probably has consulted his economic policies with these folks before he laid them out to the public. You should explain to us why you think these top economists are supporting Obama and his policies. I think this is a missing piece of a puzzle in your argument.

Intrade said...

scottie v said :

    Didn't Kudlow already post this article last week? This partisan hacks drivel is very repetitive and very BORING.

Intrade said...

David said :

    Basically, Bush provided massive tax cuts to both working class and middle class Americans. Bush doubled the child tax credit and made it refundable, lowered the lowest tax rate from 15% to 10%, made the earned income credit more generous, increased the child care credit and created a retirement savings account. In truth, Sen. Obama's middle class tax cuts merely follow those footsteps.

The problem with the Republican tax philosophy under GWB is that all tax cuts are good. Let's look at the EIC. This provides 50 billion dollars in refundable tax credits to Americans. A married couple with 2 children making 40K gets nothing from EIC, 2 single people with 1 child each making 20K receives more than 2K. Is this fair? The system is absolutely skewed against married people with children, yet neither GWB nor Sen. McCain does anything.

A higher gasoline tax is needed to reduce oil imports. Does Sen. McCain support a shift from the income tax to the gasoline tax? No, he doesn't.

Look, I agree with a corporate tax cut. But it hasn't sold well. In fact, its been an albatross on Sen. McCain's neck. Even though GWB hasn't provided a corporate tax cut at all, Obama has successfully tied Sen. McCain to GWB on this issue.

Intrade said...

KlueLess Kudlow said :

    When has lying Larry ever told the truth? Larry, there is more to financial journalism than spewing a patently false ideology. You're a creep with zero credibility.

Intrade said...

CapitalistJim said :

    The capital gains rate should be very low because a)the capital gains rate discourages the movement of capital from less desirable industries to more desirable industries, 2)the lower the capital gains rate, the lower the cost of capital. The lower the cost of capital, the easier it is to improve productivity. Higher productivity increases good jobs and lowers the cost of products produced. 3)Much of what is taxed by the capital gains rate is unfair to tax. Part of the reason capital assets increase in price is because of the allowance for inflation --- protection of purchasing power. If the protection for purchasing power is taxed, then there is a short-fall of this important protection. Without such protection, there is a disincentive to invest. No investment, no productivity gains, no new jobs.

Intrade said...

Regressive Progression said :

    While some may argue that they think it will help the economy, cutting the CG rate is yet another incremental regressive move, leaving more of the tax burden on the less than wealthy. Most families earning <200K / annum have little if any non-deferred investments. This means their gains will once again be dependent on the non-existent trickle down effect.

Intrade said...

Flaws in Logic said :

    This is an excerpt from Larry's blog in talking about Obama:
****"He calls it “a direct result of the Bush administration’s trickle-down, Wall Street first, Main Street last policies that John McCain has embraced for the last eight years and plans to continue for the next four.”

Is Obama really blaming the Bush tax cuts for this recession? ***

Nowhere in Obama's quote does he mention the tax cuts. He mentions Bush's policies. Then Larry goes on a rant comparing Regan and Clinton, while Obama's tax policies are very different from Clinton's. The entire blog is filled with logical flaws and misleading associations. Why is it that some people are so greedy that they vote strictly on how much money they get to keep, instead of worrying about our foreign policy, and the well being of the millions of Americans left behind by our current system?

Intrade said...

Hah! said :

    On the eve of a historic election, Lawrence Kudlow is twittering about a couple of technicalities. If one wished, one could readily "prove" that almost anything anyone political said was technically flawed in some way. The important truths today are 1. Obama will make the USA a global leader in eliminating dependence on oil and 2. The remarkably well disciplined campaign he has run shows that he will make a step change in the quality of the US government.

Intrade said...

pablocat said :

    Steal the tax issue from McCain?? You mean like McCain (incompetently and without any basis in reality) tried to steal the "change" issue from Obama?

Intrade said...

unixdude said :

    reply:Believe it or not, Obama seems to have swiped the tax-cut issue from the Republican party. How can this be?

Well Larry there is a very simple explanation for how this can be.
You guys suck!!!
You and your party are full of hyperbole and We the People have gotten a good taste of your tax cut nonsense for the past 8 yrs. And thank God we just might get a sigh of relief when Obama beats Mccain's little tush tonight. LOL!!
Goldy-Locks my A^&%^&%! :)

Intrade said...

Why is crap like this posted on InTrade? said :

    It's political, obviously biased (one party good, one party bad, etc.)., and is a distraction to the purpose of intrade.

I was on the fence whether to use intrade, after reading this, the answer is no--I'll skip io.

Intrade said...

veteran said :

    The tax cuts Bush gave may not have caused the recession but they certainly contributed to the deficit. If one wanted to stimulate the economy and help ease the economic pains of the middle class, it is obvious that reversing the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy and replacing them with a tax cut for the middle class who need them and will spend them which helps the economy.
Economics 101!

Intrade said...

MeatyOchre said :

    When it comes to laying the blame for the economy's current woes, Larry is right to chastise Obama for spewing false notions calculated to buy votes. It is not eight years of Bush's failed economic policies" that got us into this mess. It is corruption in federal programs and lending institutions. The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA - signed into law by Jimmy Carter in 1977) required banks and lending institutions in economical depressed areas to broker financially unsound mortgages to low-income home-buyers. To ensure that banks could afford to do this, the government created Fannie Mae, securitizing these mortgages into government guaranteed instruments. Fannie Mae made money by charging a fee up front to insure each high-risk mortgage. Banks and institutions made their money by selling mortgage packages to investors and speculators, but eventually Fannie Mae ended up buying back these mortgages when the investors and speculators decided to dump and run. The problem with the government-backed mortgages were that the underwriting criteria were so loose that just about anyone who had any source of income was appproved, since it was understood from the beginning that the "government" (the taxpayers) would be assuming ALL risk.

In order to garner popular support for the CRA, Carter and other of the bill's supporters promised that these mortgages would really be investments, since it would give everyone a shot at the American Dream of homepownership, and the pride associated with ownership would propel whole neighborhoods into prosperity. Sounds a lot like the claims that were made concerning the $700 billion bailout.

There was never any realization that in order to be able to afford to buy a home (and pay for its upkeep), people had to be encouraged to save money. Instead, saving money was discouraged by artificially low interest rates, kept too low for too long by none other than "the Maestro" Alan Greenspan, former Fed Chairman for both Democratic and Republican administrations. Greenspan's job was supposed to be that of maintaining a healthy economy without encouraging inflation or stagnation, irrespective of administration desires.

Obama knows all of this, yet he continues to do everything he can to (1) blame Bush for the nation's economic woes, and (2) to equate McCain with Bush. Don't get me wrong; Bush is no saint, and McCain is no Messiah, but Obama's insistence on blaming Bush for economic policy failures that started in a Democratic administration 31 years ago is a flat out to rewrite history for the purposes of winning votes. Unfortunately, too many voters don't care to learn the truth, and are desparate for change. They are buying all the snake oil that Obama is selling, and we will have a Democratic majority in the presideency and both houses of Congress. Obama's promises to redistrute the wealth (call it what you will) are bound to buy a majority of votes from all but the very richest. It really is a numbers racket, and smacks of populist and socialist inuendo. I admire Obama's ability to rally people to a cause; he is a great orator who knows how to work (and woo) an audience, but I fear his distortion of economic history will do more harm than good.

Intrade said...

Politicians are Liars said :

    It amazes me that everyone who like Obama acutally believes every word out of his mouth. Are you people crazy? When has ANY politician told you the truth. Do you not recall that all they want is your vote? To hell with you after they win. The only thing I know .... Obama will tax ALL of us more than we thought possible. The $250k limit is just blather. He really means $25K. Good luck to everyone as he kills trade and raises taxes on everything. In the end, those on welfare will be the best off.

Intrade said...

pianoguy said :

    The problem with the Bush tax cuts was that they weren't linked to any spending cuts. So while my taxes went down under Bush, it was really just a loan: Eventually I'm going to pay that money back with interest, either through higher taxes or through my taxes paying for fewer services. The incredible thing about the stock market's "five-year-rally" is how LITTLE it went up, considering the massive stimulation it received in the form of deficit spending. The average annual increase from the 2000 peak to the 2007 peak was only 3% - just keeping up with inflation, if that.

Intrade said...

mixjuan said :

    Does anyone realize just how broad the "investor" base is? I work in the financial industry and have seen on so many occasions where a mutual fund in the account of a fixed income elderly person has cap gains distributions. These are not rich people, and they have no other way to really get income, but when a Fund declares a cap gains distribution, they get hammered at tax time. They end up having to sell more of their funds to pay the taxes and the cycle repeats itself.

Everyone hurts from punishing investment.

With this kind of ignorance out there, it is no wonder Obama has been able to deceive so many into thinking he will bring positive change with his promise of "Change".

We could be in a bus pulling away from the cliff and a reversal in direction would be "change", but would it be positive change?

Intrade said...

biased blah said :

    Your assessment of the "booming economy" are based on the fact that the rich got richer in our society over the past 6 years. Whoop de doo. Ironically, there's a complete lack of recognition that once a few things started going awry, the country was in a crisis. This is a direct result of creating a system where the wealthy prosper, and the poor live from paycheck to paycheck. Back off of your statistics and look at the real effects of ideologies.

Intrade said...

Me said :

    I hope Obama is lying and taxes us! Our country needs it with an 11 Trillion dollar debt.

Intrade said...

no tax without rep said :

    we need more taxes. stop passing the deficits to our children. taxation without representation is tyranny!

Intrade said...

hmp said :

    I see MeatyOchre conveniently forgets about deregulation permitting 40-1 leverage (for which Paulson came hat in hand while still with GS), repeal of Glass Steagal, the Enron exemption etc.

Blame it all on poor people, they're the ones who walked away with billions in "profits" and golden parachutes.

The Republicans and their wealthy masters have plundered the country. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Intrade said...

spec said :

    Two thirds of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is consumer spending. The rest is government and business investment. Cut taxes to the middle class, put more dollars in its hands, and demand for goods and services will "surge." This will cause employment to rise, income to rise, and prosperity to return. Put more dollars in the hands of investors and the business class and they will put it in marketable securities or foreign accounts, where it will earn a return, until demand rises again. And where will the demand come from if the middle class is unemployed. Tickle down has not worked. It's time for trickle up.

Intrade said...

redandblue said :

    Larry Kudlow was and is a charlatan.

Intrade said...

Matt Drudge said :

    Oh Larry Larry Larry,
You and with your old Republican playbook complaining about the capital gain tax rates. I just don't get it. The broader market is lower today then when Bush walked into the office. Bush lowered the capital gains tax rate but average investor does not have any capital gain in the last 8 years. How did the lower taxes under Republicans helped the average investor?

Intrade said...

SRQ said :

    Yeah Larry shame on you for not drinking the Democrat Kool-aid. I can't believe that you won't let yourself be spoonfed socialism by The Annointed One. C'mon, how silly can a guy be?

Intrade said...

madprof said :

    Until Intrade dumps this hack, Kudlow, I have no intention of ever using its platform. One can find conservatives on the near side of reality.

Intrade said...

0% capt gains tax said :

    Capital gains are already taxed at 0%--for the vast majority of Americans who have taxable income of under $65,000 (AGI of perhaps $95,000, depending on deductions and exclusions). Larry apparently doesn't often meet the millions of shareholders who already have no capital gains tax, but instead concentrates on his wealthy overlords.

Intrade said...

cheesyhunk said :

    Kudlow says, " Last Friday, McCain told me in an interview that a “low capital-gains tax is probably the greatest incentive for investment that we have in America today.”" WRONG!!! The greatest incentive for investment are investment opportunities that have an expected return greater than a firm's "cost of capital." Those investment opportunities will disappear without a health middle class, with low middle class taxes. If no one is buying your products or services, PROFITS, what Kudlow calls "the mother's milk" of the stock market, will vanish. No self respecting capitalist will invest in plant and equipment under these circumstances only to loose his shirt. So into foreign accounts goes the money again. And on vacation goes "Goldilocks."

Intrade said...

aj said :

    The idea that low capital gains rates spur investment is unproven. What spurs investment is the anticipation of profit. Investors are often very savvy about protecting their initial profits by reinvesting, tax loss carryforwards, etc. So low capital gains tax rates are often post event giveaways for speculative winnings.
Putting money into working class Americans hands is clearly a better form of tax relief.

In another vein, Kudlow refers to the Bush bull market. I believe this is false. A low percentage of earnings have been returned to the shareholders. This suggests to me a kind of bubble, which eventually must be corrected. Stockholders cannot continuously sell each other paper, and make money.

Intrade said...

Mark in SF said :

    "Is Obama really blaming the Bush tax cuts for this recession? "

Are you really putting words in Obama's mouth like that? He didn't specifically blame tax cuts. He blamed "trickle-down, Wall Street first, Main Street last policies."

Then you say "Not the credit shock?"

HELLO? You really think your readers are so stupid that we don't realize how this credit shock was set up to happen in the first place? It was very much the "wall street first" attitude of the last 10 years.

Intrade said...

Elasticmedia said :

    Your opinions are always so negative and so presumptuous. If you want to sell your Bush rehashed koolaid, you might profit from taking a better picture. You look so angry.

Intrade said...

Mark in SF said :

    "Not the Obama-supported government mandate to sell unaffordable homes to low-income people and the pressure on Fannie and Freddie to securitize these loans? "

Kudlow knows very well investment banks were fully in the business of securitizing subprime loans well before the GSE's got into the business. Pressure came because GSEs were loosing marketshare. And even then, the GSE loan standards were higher than then ones Goldman and others were packaging up.

He also knows full well the bad loans were not mandated by anybody. The were made because they were vastly profitable to originate and sell up the line.

Kuldow is either ignorant or a liar.

Intrade said...

bailey said :

    Kudlow is an idiot. The cause of the rescession is the lack of finanacial regulations and allowing 40:1 leverage. Kudlow has no expertise the only way he can make money is being a mouthpiece for supply siders and the tax breaks he keeps begging for.

Intrade said...

Roy Mumaw said :

    I love how people discuss taxes as a bad thing out-of-hand. Taxes are paid by people whether they are taken out of your paycheck, taken out as a loan from another country, or simply the result of the government printing additional paper to cover its increased costs. The plans of John McCain's that I have seen seem to show greater spending and less taxation, as compared with Barack Obama. This to me implies that Barack Obama is more open about his taxation than John McCain.

Obama does target the wealthier of America with his taxes, and I understand the concern, but his plan at least has a 'cash cycle' which I can follow and which makes sense (money goes into the consumer class, it rises up via consumption, and is taxed accordingly). Perhaps this is a failing of my brain, but that system seesm to make more sense tgo me than to give money to the wealthy business types and trust their good will to invest their money in their communities.

Incidentally, I have read recently (and confirmed via the Bureau of Economic Analysis website, table 3.9.1), that Democrats in fact have supported smaller government spending over the last 20-30 years than Republicans.

Intrade said...

NotBuyingIt said :

    You have to make things simple for Mr. Kudlow. If I get several credit cards and a mortgage then quit my job most would say I was irresponsible and headed for disaster. When Bush does essentially the same thing, Kudlow thinks it is spot-on smart

Intrade said...

Kudlow drivels on... said :

    ah Larry where shall I start... reading the posts I feel most every thing has been covered so I will just add I cringe every time you come on CNBC with pointless drivel based on false logic. Usually you misquote someone,take some thing out of context or put words in someone's mouth just like you did with Obama. Then to top it all off you SHOUT just about everything on CNBC. You are no better on Intrade than you are on CNBC. Fresh thinking in Washington is what we need not your tired rhetoric.

Intrade said...

the taxman said :

    hypothetical:

what if intrade raised the taxes on those with long term profits?

at the end of a month net winners in excess of $1000 are taxed $200; winners over $5000 are taxed $1250; winners over $10000 give back $3000. would you keep wagering here?

Intrade said...

psb said :

    No, Kudlow's not a hack, he's not spewing venom, and he's not embarrassing himself. The man knows FAR more about economics than every single person posting here. Stop reacting so violently to someone who doesn't praise Obama's tax plan. For crying out loud people...the name callers here are just showing their ignorance, they make themselves look silly and hateful.

Intrade said...

CaldwellFarms said :

    Kudlow
I've decided that you are a whore. Anything for a price. I recall your raving reviews of your interview with Sarah Palin. Check this one out---
Faux News is occasionally good for something more than a good face stretching (you have to think about that one, I know) - sometimes they report real news on matters of import, and sometimes are just good for a laugh.

This time it is both! Stunningly, but not surprisingly, the gal who was 3% of the vote and an old man's heart beat away from the presidency thinks Africa is a country in and of itself, and Faux decided it was time to report it, damn it!

Kudos... I guess?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWZHTJsR4Bc

...and now McCain aides are calling Sarah a "Diva" and the Palin family the "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast..."
I can't wait to hear more of that one!

Great interview Larry!!!

Intrade said...

jhr00000 said :

    Kudlow, Thanks again for Sarah Palin. She's the gift that keeps on giving.

Intrade said...

Max said :

    Not only are you a sore loser, you have no grasp of the facts. Take a deep breath and let it go!

Intrade said...

petemill said :

    What is this column even doing on this site? How about sticking to content about the prediction market. That's what we're here for.

Intrade said...

paruig said :

    Larry, I find it very interesting that the negative to positive ratio of comments on your article are running about 40 to 1. Isn't that the ratio that got us where we are today? Your partisanship is disgusting. I am glad they seem to have taken your Kudlow and Company off the air.

Intrade said...

Larry said :

    Nowhere does Larry ever talk about deficits. Larry never met a tax cut he did not like. Lets just cut taxes 100 percent. According to Larry we the government will get more money. Clinto administration got rid of deficit. Bush and his cronies have taken deficits to a new level. Trickle down does not work.

Intrade said...

The Bottom Line said :

    abcdef is somewhat correct. From the Credit Suisse Report "Mortgage Liquidity du Jour", by 2006 48% of mortgages were low\no doc. A sample of 100 low\no doc loans showed 60 applicants overstated their income by MORE than 50%. There are no buyers to come back or save because they never existed the first time!

It was a group of Democrats and Republicans that voted against oversight of Fannie and Freddie. TaxFoundation.org has an excellent video of this crime. The cost for this stupidity to date was announced at 2 Trillion today on Fox Business and other media outlets. The two politicians that took the largest contributions from Fannie and Freddie and voted against their regulation....a Senator Dodd and Obama. Google "contributions from fannie and freddie" and there are endless sources.

Intrade said...

john H said :

    It is interesting there are few comments that disagree with the facts or conclusions. It seems that people that cannot argue on an intellectual level just personally attack the messenger. These folks are perfect for the politicos and mainstream media to manipulate. The old name would be Lemmings. Perhaps we need a new glitzy term for the uniformed hate mongers; Obamaites???

Intrade said...

andywend said :

    This world is becoming more and more infested with people who can't make it on their own abilities. All of these people commenting probably don't even have jobs so they sit on their rear ends and spend their day commenting about free market capitalism.

You people are pathetic.

Mr. Kudlow, you're right on target as usual.