The entire debate Wednesday night was bullshit. It is biased against every working family.

[Selatius]

During Wednesday’s Democratic presidential debate, Charles Gibson of ABC News made the following statements about capital gains taxes:

• “Bill Clinton in 1997 signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent and George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent and in each instance when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased. The government took in more money.”
  
• “So why raise it (the capital gains rate) at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected.”
  

These statements, echoed in a Wall Street Journal editorial today, are seriously misleading, as ...

...

The myth that tax cuts pay for themselves hinders a debate on the nation’s budget priorities — and its serious long-term budget problems and the tough choices we must make to address them — by creating the illusion of a free lunch. Such free lunches do not exist. Capital gains tax cuts either make the nation’s daunting long-term budget problems even more severe or consume scarce resources (primarily to the benefit of the most well-off) that could otherwise be used for purposes such as moving toward universal health coverage or improving the educational system.

http://www.cbpp.org/policy-points4-18-08.htm

ABC is a fucking joke, and the debate is a sham. There is no real free media left in America outside the internet.

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

1. Apparently Charlie never took debating class in high school

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. It's a logical fallacy to assume that because receipts increased after the rate was cut, they increased BECAUSE the rate was cut. The capital gains receipts increased for a time because more people were cashing in stock to take advantage of the lower rates. Once that effect wore off, receipts dropped again.

[sharesunited]

2. I've been saying the same thing!

And I also invite Charlie Gibson to follow his logic to its logical conclusion.

Elimination of the capital gains tax should bring in the biggest receipts of all.

Ahem. Eliminate the tax entirely and bring in the biggest receipts ever from that tax.

What is wrong with this thinking?

[crispini]

3. Charlie Gibson can bite my pasty white ass.

And that particular sentiment was already in my browser cache, making posting super-duper easy! :D

[hokies4ever]

4. Debate was for the Superdelegates

and that's why everybody is upset. We were all duped. We turned on the TV set expecting a debate for the voters, probably slanted toward PA voters, but we just got a debate for the superdelegates. Just look at the last question in the debate. It's asked all the time, essentially what's your final case to undecided voters. However, it was phrased as what's your case to 20 undecided superdelegates at the Dem Convention that would tip the balance of total delegates in your favor. Disgusting and despicable. Yes, we understand that the supers get to vote, but ABC needs to at least pretend that the voters have some input even if they don't believe it.

[readmoreoften]

5. There's no free anything left outside the internet...

...which was originally called ARPANET because it was created largely by ARPA, the precursor of DARPA--the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency.
It's a system of "free communication" that just happens to record, contextualize, and trace everything you type. Or as they say "Nothing in life is free."