California Conservative

Robert Novak has posted something at Townhall.com about Sen. Obama mocking Sen. Obama’s definition of a tax loophole. Here’s what Mr. Novak posted:

How would Barack Obama pay for the $800 billion that John McCain claimed in the first presidential debate Sept. 26 in Oxford, Miss., that his Democratic opponent would spend if he were elected president? Obama replied, by “closing tax loopholes.”

Obama was no more specific in the debate, and tax experts doubt that structural changes without increasing taxes can raise anything close to that amount of money.

My office asked the Obama campaign for the details, and it responded with a 19-page single-spaced paper on the candidate’s “tax plans.”

In fact, there was precious little about tax policy in the paper, which amounted to a repeat of Democratic campaign oratory that can be heard in 30-second speeches before both houses of Congress daily on C-SPAN.

Obama has made clear that he would try to roll back President Bush’s tax cuts, but that does not come under the definition of a “loophole.” A loophole consists of a conniving tax attorney discovering a weakness in the Internal Revenue Code or such a weakness intentionally legislated by Congress under the instigation of crafty lobbyists. The only specific tax legislation contained in Obama’s paper would raise the capital gains rate for most shareholders, restore taxation on dividend income to pre-Bush standards and restore the full estate tax.

The Anointed is playing word games. He knows that accurately describing his tax policies means that he’d have to call them tax increases. (In fact, an $800 billion tax increase would be one of the biggest in U.S. history.) The Anointed knows that using the term closing loopholes gets a pass from voters. He knows that if he tells people directly that he plans on proposing job-killing tax increases on small businesses, he’d get defeated. That’s why he’s using the euphemism closing tax loopholes.

The truth is that Sen. Obama’s policies are either failed or radical. Sen. Obama’s tax policies fall into the failed category. Sen. Obama’s supporters will say that his policies aren’t unlike Bill Clinton’s. While it’s true that Bill Clinton raised taxes, the conditions were completely different. He raised taxes while the economy was strengthening. Sen. Obama’s tax increases would happen while the economy is teetering.

That’s plain stupid.

If Sen. Obama wants to create ‘Soupline America’, he’s on the right track. If the American people want prosperity within the next 4 years, then he’s the last person we should want steering the United States. I’ll simply close with this:

The Obama paper paints a picture of lobbyists running wild on Capitol Hill but neglects to assess the impact on the economy during the current financial crisis of taking a serious strike against the stockholding public.

It’s fashionable to paint Washington run amok with evil lobbyists, mostly because there are alot of Washington lobbyists running amok. Sen. Obama knows that because his staff is littered with lobbyists and special interest yes men.

Technorati Tags: Taxes, Tax Increases, Tax Loopholes, Recession, Lobbyists, Special Interests, Bill Clinton, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 7:15 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Economy, Election 2008, Obama, Special Interests, Taxes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.