Brown, Whitman tangle over capital gains tax cut

[bemildred]

Source: AP

Democrat Jerry Brown on Monday cast his gubernatorial rival as a billionaire opportunist who wants to enrich herself with tax breaks — a charge Meg Whitman called class warfare by the attorney general in the closing two weeks of the campaign.

At a news conference in San Francisco, Brown criticized the former chief executive of eBay for failing to disclose how much she would save under her proposal to eliminate the capital gains tax.

"This is a pretty simple deal," said Brown, who was surrounded by Asian American lawmakers who endorsed him. "She can talk all she wants, but the truth is she wants to enrich herself and her contributors and the very wealthiest people in our society."

The issue first arose last week at the candidates' final debate in which Brown publicly asked Whitman to tell voters how much she would personally benefit from her tax plan. He has estimated Whitman would owe $15 million if she sold stock for the $140 million she has given her campaign.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/10/18/politics/p121409D43.DTL&type=politics

[tularetom]

1. Fuckin A right it's class warfare

And it's about time our side unleashed a little bit of it.

The republicans have been waging class warfare for 30 years with barely a peep out of the rest of us.

Now don't back down, Jerry Brown and don't even think of apologizing.

[pattmarty]

2. I can never understand why people on the left are afraid of that..............

.........term "class warfare". I am proud to say it is very much class warfare and we are the ones that are getting beaten up by these rich pricks. Stand up and be proud to be in the class warfare. This IS NOT something to be ashamed of or intimidated by.

[Cartoonist]

3. damn right

It sure is class warfare, and we, the working class, have been losing big time since Reagan. Why can't other middle class people understand that? The south should be solid blue. The whole country should be. The problem is that all dem senators are millionaires too. Thanks, DiFI, for nothing.

[karynnj]

10. No - Obama was right - but he shouldn't have said it - when he spoke of

some voting their religion or "their guns" (replace with life style".

You are assuming that people should vote their economic interest. Obviously, that is a major set of issues, but some of the other issues may define them more. What is very clear is that the Republicans are attempting to argue that they support the values that these blue collar or rural poor voters do, They have covered the elitist helping the top 30% (and concentrating that help on the topo less than 1%) with a veneer of evangelistic, conservative values.

We need to strip out and make 100% clear that they in a close to party line vote voted not to close loopholes that advantage those who ship jobs overseas. We need to show that they are not upset when a man died leaving $9 billion to his heirs - and there was absolutely no tax on the estate going to the heirs. Ask them to justify that when the first dollar a person working a minimum wage job is taxed (FICA). The Republicans fight even when the limit was that estate taxes kick in only for estates more than $7 million. Show that for all their fiscal "responsibility" they want to continue a tax cut to the wealthiest that was temporary because the Republicans could not ram (using reconciliation) through a permanent tax cut of that magnitude because even pre 911, it was unaffordable.

They are also all saying that they are the ones supporting the Constitution - yet they are all proposing many things that would require changing the Constitution. We need to point out the hypocrisy better.

[Paranoid Pessimist]

4. Every Time Someone Other Than One of Them Raises the Issue of

class warfare, the so-called conservatives say "Class warfare!" and get a "we're sorry, we're sorry; we don't want to do that" reaction from the public people the upper classes are waging war against.

It's disheartening.

[shanti]

5. if the shoe fits, nutmeg!

and it does...

[The Green Manalishi]

6. They only call it 'Class Warfare' when we fight back.

[ProudDad]

7. How can telling the truth about someone who HAS NO CLASS

"Class warfare"?

Whitman's got no class...

[bemildred]

8. Ms Whitman admits that she thinks she is in a different class from the rest of us. nt

[lunatica]

9. The thing I like about Brown is he speaks quite plainly

He was invited by my Condo's Homeowners Association group to speak to us when he was running for Mayor of Oakland. We all stood around the community pool and listened to him speak and asked questions if we wanted to. One lady asked him what he was planning to do about a pool hall opening up in one of the neighborhoods. The way she asked the question it was pretty obvious she disliked the idea because of the type of people it would attract. Browns response? He said he was totally supportive of small businesses and that he approved of the idea of the pool hall. His response started off with the words "Why not? Oakland needs small businesses which will help it to grow and thrive." I really liked that.