Giulani on Democratic Tax Proposals

What on earth is Rudy babbling about now:

Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani on Monday accused Democrats of favoring a controlling “nanny government” as he continued his bashing of the rival party. The former New York mayor, opening a two-day campaign trip in the first primary state, also claimed that Democrats would raise taxes between 20 percent to 30 percent. He offered no specifics to back up those figures.

No specifics to back up his claims is about right. I get really tired of the spend and spend and borrow and borrow free lunch freaks in the GOP bashing us Democrats over taxes since all these massive deficits that their tax shifts in disguise of tax “cuts: amount to deferred taxation. But that’s not what ticks me off with respect to the latest babbling from Rudy. This is:

“It looks like they’re going to raise taxes anywhere between 20 to 30 percent. John Edwards just said he’s going to raise the capital gains tax double that. Last time we did that, we lost 40 percent in revenue. The last time we did what John Edwards is discussing, the United States lost revenue by basically discouraging people from making investments.”

Two problems here. John Edwards is not proposing a 60 percent tax on capital gains (double of 30 percent). The bigger problem is that Rudy has no evidence that treating capital gains like any other form of capital income with respect to taxation discourages investment.

I know Rudy wants to sound like a rightwing in the tradition of Donald Luskin or Rush Limbaugh. On that score – he is succeeding wonderfully as this babbling is either really stupid or really dishonest, if not both.