15% tax rate for Mitt Romney

Bronco-

I think Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican from Iowa, as well as Jon Stewart explain it best. Sen. Grassley, ranking member on the Sen. Finance committee co-sponsored a bill 3 years ago to remove the carried interest break and increase it to 35%.

Then later and to his surprise he was blind sided by lobbyists from the PE/ Hedge Fund industry who whined to keep it where it is so feeble minds like Rex can repeat their logo "our money is special and makes the economy grow more than your income does."

In fact- after this thread was created, Jon Stewart put together a montage on it Tuesday night, showing actual clips of Sen. Grassley being interviewed on CNBC as well as Romney on CNBC too. I googled the clip and found 2 sources for you- and no I don't read these websites- I just googled them: Grassley on Carried Interest, CNBC
Grassley on CNBC via JS

The meat of the clips are 2-3 minutes in if you're not a Jon Stewart fan. Had this same issue arose 3 years ago it wouldn't have had the partisan blinders it has today when the leading GOP candidate's firm was one of the top funders for the lobbyists who helped stop the bi-partisan bill meant to reduce the carried interest break.

Since you clearly enjoy analyzing my posts so much- I strongly urge you to take 4 whole minutes to watch either of the 2 clips (they are identical)

Re: your post- yeah I'd love to change tons of tax policies. The tax code is way too complicated- for example my entire life I've done my own taxes- but then between my wife and I earning income in 2 states with some stock options we had to use a CPA, and the CPA had to re-file our return twice to handle some confusion. I'd love to think about a flat tax and remove most subsidies for various sectors of the economy if it lets everything compete fairly. And I could go on..

Re: carried interest- those dollars help the economy as much as the guy who works at McDonalds does when he goes out to spend his dollars. His dollars support local businesses, and with enough of those dollars they can then embark on projects, or support others who do, to create new businesses and infrastructure. Carried interest breaks just make the industry more profitable for those who work inside of it- but not for the investments meant to benefit from it which is what we want. There is a difference between the Managing Director making $$ at a PE firm, and the incentive that LPs, or investors, have in giving a PE money so they go out to invest in projects or infrastructure. Those are two different things.

I don't want any jobs lost under any circumstances- but as I said above- the cost to having a flat, and equitable society- and by that I don't mean socialism, I mean that all dollars and all people are treated fairly if they work hard and perform well. Some costs are worth it- you brought up the auto industry- the worst thing about that bailout was that it sent a message that failure could be tolerated. Outside of that, it has to be looked at as a huge success for this country. GM and Ford are doing very well, Chrysler is growing slowly, and many, many jobs were saved. I am upset the auto industry got a huge favor- but I'm less upset if 1MM jobs were saved. 18,000?? I read the link of course- I can't say it's intuitive but it is their number. I'm very sure I could find another link with a different number in two minutes- I just showed you the first one I found. Still- if you could pretend we reduce spending, 2.4B pays for a lot of policemen, teachers and roads that also create other jobs. It's a complex topic to research- I value rewarding those who work hard, not those who lobby hard.
 
It is easy to pass a budget that you know has no chance of getting past the other side of Congress. They could have passed a reasonable budget, a budget based on the President's recommendations possibly, and then I think I would find your argument more tangible.
 
7 iron

taxes are only a small part of the equation when determining where to invest your capital. It gets invested where it can earn the best return. The best returns aren't solely driven by taxes. Just as important and maybe even more so are quality of workforce, legal climate, infrastructure. Show me this imaginary country that has no capital gains tax but somehow they are a giant economic engine.

All those other factors are cost that capital gains (and other taxes) must bear in order to have them.

Business must have adequate trained workforce to make money. They want to benefit from that trained/educated workforce but for some reason are trying to sell us that they bear no responsibility for producing the very asset that is going to make them money in 18 yrs.
 
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