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.)
Groveler Nosetwist is gonna be very upset about this.
Either I have lost control of my senses or Bush III has gone quite mad. I suspect that this is a matter of learning a new code. “Strengthening SS” means weakening it and so on. A new spectacle awaits. No way will it be as advertized. We’ve seen this before, I think. NancyO
And, don’t forget, it would be fine with the President to revive the chained CPI even though he didn’t mention it in his proposed budget. Imagine that! A Democratic President doesn’t see a thing wrong with reducing the debt on the backs of retired people. The Debt is like you know a Thing. NancyO
So Jeb Bush uses Frank Luntz for his message and somehow people are supposed to think his message is different than his brother, or Romney, or Ryan?
Why?
“Far too many Americans live on the edge of economic ruin. And many more feel like they’re stuck in place: Working longer, and harder, even as they’re losing ground. Tens of millions of Americans no longer see a clear path to rise above their challenges.
“Something is holding them back. Not a lack of ambition. Not a lack of hope. Not because they’re lazy, or see themselves as victims. Something else. Something is an artificial weight on their shoulders.”
Pure Luntz right there. And you do not have to be Kreskin to figure out exactly what Jeb’s ” new vision, a plan of action that is different than what we’ve been hearing from Washington, D.C.” is going to be.
The same exact plan as Reagan, as Bush, as Romney, as Ryan
Geez, he even says ” It’s a vision rooted in conservative principles, and tethered to our shared belief in opportunity and the unknown possibilities of a nation given the freedom to act, to create, to dream, and to rise.”
He is not just his brother’s brother, he is a brother to all of these people.
If Hillary Clinton ever deigns to come out of that hiding place she’s renting from Dick Cheney, she might consider pointing out, in more than 140 characters, that those artificial weights—higher taxes on the wealthy; taxes on inherited wealth; taxing capital gains at the same rate as income from labor; strong banking regulation; strong labor unions; large expenditures by states on their public universities; Social Security; Medicare; low college-loan rates—on the shoulders of the WWII and baby boomer generations were what dashed their hopes of opportunity and the unknown possibilities of a nation given the freedom to act, to create, to dream, and to rise.
Yeah, that’s it! That’s the reason for the spiraling inequality, huge growth in corporate profits but none in wages and mid-level salaries, etc., that began en force during the, y’know, Reagan Revolution!
I’m kinda curious, though. What does Jeb Bush think was the artificial weight on the shoulders of ordinary folk during the four years of his brother’s White House administration when both houses of Congress were controlled by the party of Freedom! Liberty!? Just wonderin’.
Easy answer. The “artificial weight” was “those people”.
And Barney Frank and the other Dems elected by “those people” stopped Jeb’s brother from freedom.
Ah! That’s it! George wanted to be the second coming of Abraham Lincoln and emancipate most of us, but Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, er, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Barack Obama put a stop to it.