The Redhunter

This is from one of the debates during the primaries earlier this year

GIBSON: All right. You have, however, said you would favor an increase in the capital gains tax. As a matter of fact, you said on CNBC, and I quote, "I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton," which was 28 percent. It's now 15 percent. That's almost a doubling, if you went to 28 percent.

But actually, Bill Clinton, in 1997, signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent.

OBAMA: Right.

GIBSON: And George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent.

OBAMA: Right.

GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down.

So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?

OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.

Senator Obama does not like the way wealth is distributed the United States. It's not just that he has different ideas on how to jump start the economy, or how to pull us out of our current fiscal difficulties. No, he thinks he knows better.

Tax policy should be used for two things; funding government programs and inciting certain behavior. The first is obvious. An example of the second is the mortgage tax deduction (which somehow is never described as a 'loophole") which was designed to encourage home ownership.

But Obama is not happy with this. To him taxes should be used to punish some and reward others.

This, then, is the real Obama. The one who wants to remake America. And to think that some say that his radical past and associations don't matter.

On Obama's campaign website is this

Obama's Comprehensive Tax Policy Plan for America will:

* Cut taxes for 95 percent of workers and their families with a tax cut of $500 for workers or $1,000 for working couples.

The Wall Street Journal, in an article today titled Obama's 95% Illusion:
It depends on what the meaning of 'tax cut' is explains why these promises are misleading in some detail, but the bottom line is pretty simple

Somewhere around a third (or here) of all adult Americans pay no income taxes at all. So how can 95% receive a refund? Simple: You just write them a check. This is income redistribution in the name of "fairness."

On the the WSJ:

Here's the political catch. All but the clean car credit would be "refundable," which is Washington-speak for the fact that you can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability. In other words, they are an income transfer -- a federal check -- from taxpayers to nontaxpayers. Once upon a time we called this "welfare," or in George McGovern's 1972 campaign a "Demogrant." Mr. Obama's genius is to call it a tax cut.

The Tax Foundation estimates that under the Obama plan 63 million Americans, or 44% of all tax filers, would have no income tax liability and most of those would get a check from the IRS each year. The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis estimates that by 2011, under the Obama plan, an additional 10 million filers would pay zero taxes while cashing checks from the IRS.

The total annual expenditures on refundable "tax credits" would rise over the next 10 years by $647 billion to $1.054 trillion, according to the Tax Policy Center. This means that the tax-credit welfare state would soon cost four times actual cash welfare. By redefining such income payments as "tax credits," the Obama campaign also redefines them away as a tax share of GDP. Presto, the federal tax burden looks much smaller than it really is.

The political left defends "refundability" on grounds that these payments help to offset the payroll tax. And that was at least plausible when the only major refundable credit was the earned-income tax credit. Taken together, however, these tax credit payments would exceed payroll levies for most low-income workers.
...

There's another catch: Because Mr. Obama's tax credits are phased out as incomes rise, they impose a huge "marginal" tax rate increase on low-income workers. The marginal tax rate refers to the rate on the next dollar of income earned. As the nearby chart illustrates, the marginal rate for millions of low- and middle-income workers would spike as they earn more income.

Some families with an income of $40,000 could lose up to 40 cents in vanishing credits for every additional dollar earned from working overtime or taking a new job. As public policy, this is contradictory. The tax credits are sold in the name of "making work pay," but in practice they can be a disincentive to working harder, especially if you're a lower-income couple getting raises of $1,000 or $2,000 a year. One mystery -- among many -- of the McCain campaign is why it has allowed Mr. Obama's 95% illusion to go unanswered.

I can answer that last one; because his campaign is incompetent, that's why.

Update

Note to any leftist trolls who may happen by; the issue is not "Joe the plumber". His circumstances are not relevant (and most of what the lefties are saying about him are lies). What's relevant is Obama's plan for socialist income redistribution.

10-27 Update

This is incredible. It's Barack Obama in a 1995 interview discussing how he wants to redistribute wealth in the United States

Stop the ACLU has a partial transcript