Democratic Debate: Obama and Clinton both Struggle to Understand Tax Rate vs Tax Revenue…

In a telling moment during the Democratic Debate in Philadelphia yesterday, April 16, 2008, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton appeared to fail to understand the difference between a tax rate and tax revenue.

The moment came about an hour and five minutes into the debate: both Democratic candidates have discussed raising the Capital Gains Tax from it’s current 15% rate. The moderator pointed out that the RATE decreased from 28% to 20% under Bill Clinton, and again from 20% to 15% under George Bush, however in both these cases, REVENUE to the government derived from this tax INCREASED. When the rate was previously increased to 28%, revenues DECLINED. He went on to ask, first Mr. Obama, then Mrs. Clinton, if they would still be willing to raise the tax rate, despite overwhelming evidence increases in the tax rate lead to LESS revenue.

Politix – The Clinton Lust for Power…

The View From the North

US politics would appear to yield a seemingly unending sea of things to snicker over. If, that is, it were a small-town high school’s election for class president, not a contest to become the President of the United States.

The latest? Well, after a very calculated pattern of below-the-belt attacks on her rivals by members of Billary’s entourage (comments quickly disowned by the Great Pant-Suited One, after the damage is done, of course), Mrs. Clinton has taken to outright fabrication. She now claims on a trip to war-torn Bosnia in 1996 her plane landed amidst sniper fire, further claiming the greeting ceremony at the airport was cut short and they had to, “run with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.” Mrs. Clinton further claimed she was sent to areas deemed too dangerous for her husband to visit.

Politix – Michigan, Florida and Learning to Count…

The View from the North

Given I’m not a US citizen, it’s easy to look south of the border with detached bemusement as the Democratic candidates try to convince the voters to let them run the country while at the same time struggling to run a primary race. Florida and Michigan, in case you’ve been on another planet for the past several weeks, jumped the gun and held their primaries early, in contravention of Democratic party rules (rules which both states voted in favour of). Now that the primary race has reached a point whereby neither candidate can secure enough votes needed to win outright, attempts are being made to have the discredited votes/voters count towards the result.

It seems to me the Democratic party, under Howard Dean’s leadership, caused the problem by not reducing the amount of delegates needed to win the nomination