Say Anything Blog

Over at his blog, Now Batting For Pedro Borbon, Wall Street pro Donny Baseball takes former White House economic advisor and current CNBC econo-pundit Larry Kudlow to task for believing the Obama camp’s most recent disingenuous flip-flop on taxes.

I don’t understand why anyone thinks Obama’s softening of his tax policy is a hopeful sign. Obama’s economic team now says he’s only going to raise the dividend and capital gain tax rate on people earning over $200k or $250k per year. Really? The current 15% tax rate on dividends and capital gains expires at the end of this year unless the Great Sausage Factory takes action to extend it. So, one month before Obama takes office, if he takes office, tax rates on investors will be raised automatically. That means that a newly installed President Obama has to actively draft and send to the Pelosi/Reid Sausage Factory a tax cut (back to 15%) for investors, albeit not all investors. Um, does anybody in their right mind think that a) Obama will get right on this, b) it has even the remotest chance of passage in Nancy Reid’s Congress?

…Supply-siders like Kudlow are being snowed. This is a costless piece of moderating rhetoric. Obama can’t and will never have to deliver on it.

Donny is right.  Obama’s people are lying through their teeth in an effort to make their candidate look less like the Democrat radical he really is.  Taxes on capital will go up, and the economy will sink further into the miasma of a Jimmy Carter re-run if Obama is elected.