Jeb Bush Declares His Support For Raising the Capital Gains Tax, Ending the ‘Carried Interest’ Tax Break, and Taxing Most Inherited Wealth. Seriously.

To be sure, after distancing himself from Romney’s formulation, Bush launched into a speech that was loaded up with the usual anti-government boilerplate. Bush did say that “only a small portion” of Americans are “riding the economy’s up escalator,” in keeping with his apparent goal — which is shared by other GOP presidential candidates — to focus his candidacy on inequality, stalled mobility, wage stagnation, and the failure of the recovery’s gains to achieve widespread distribution. But he then went on and on about the folly of expecting “government to deliver prosperity,” trafficked in the usual rhetoric about government picking winners and losers and impeding the magic of competition and economic freedom, and tossed off a few cracks about Washington being a “company town” that “recklessly degrades the value of work.”*

Jeb Bush will liberate the 47 percent, Greg Sargent, The Washington Post, yesterday

Sargent’s report is about a speech Bush gave yesterday to the Detroit Economic Club, which was last in the national political headlines in January 2012, shortly before the Michigan primary, when Romney gave what quickly became my very, very most favoritest of Romney’s public speeches (y’know; the ones that were intended to become public).

Bush recognizes that Washington is a “company town” that “recklessly degrades the value of work.” Cool!!  It is indeed reckless that capital gains, “carried interest,” and the like are taxed at a much lower rate than income from work, and that most inherited wealth is taxed not at all.  But it’s surprising that Jeb Bush recognizes this.

Bush also said that he can’t just run as George Bush’s brother; he has to be his own person with his own political identity.  But who expected such a dramatic break from brother George’s seminal domestic policy?  And so soon into the campaign season!

Jeb Bush, you are indeed not just your brother’s brother.  Are you even your brother’s brother at all?

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*Presumably, the company Bush references is Koch Industries. (Added 2/5 at 5:55 p.m.)