The Obama people should be smart enough to understand the difference between attacking the left and attacking the right. If you attack the left, you can say almost lie you can think up and, except for the TIMES, WaPo, and a few other liberal papers, the worst that will happen is the left's defense will be accurately reported without editorial comment. If the right is attacked without ironclad proof, FOX will ring with indignation for weeks and the rest of the media will, at best, tut-tut about how the left is degrading the dialogue. WITH ironclad proof, you'll still be lumped together with Ann Coulter.

Nobody EXPECTS the right to be fair -- why do you think Anne Coulter hasn't been sent home long ago? The left, on the other hand, IS expected to be fair, not only by the right and center but also by the left itself. It is liberal's cross to bear.

When John McCain's war record was attacked by George W. Bush's people in South Carolina in 2000, where the fuck was the storm of outrage that is attending the remarks referred to herein? These bozos didn't question his experience, they questioned his SANITY. But Dubya was better for the super-rich on taxes than McCain was, so he got a pass. That's the way the game gets played.

Obama should squash any attacks on McCain's war record ASAP. There is no profit in them. That's simply the way things are here in Richistan.

Slasher:

This is a link I have been following to learn more on SS, the TF, etc. If you have loads of time, I think it is a very worth while read as these people know way more than I do.

Bill

<link> Social Security- Angry Bear Blog

Interesting stuff, Bill. Thanks for the tip.

Had a hilarious thing happen to me last week. I was involved in an exchange in the Fray over whether or not capital gains taxes should be indexed for inflation, a ridiculous idea if ever I heard one, and my opponent claimed that capital gains could drive one into the AMT. I thought was impossible since cap gains are taxed on a completely separate basis from income. But, just to be sure, I checked my last income tax return, which is professionally prepared, to see how it was handled.

Two BIG surprises. The first is that, as far as I can tell, cap gains ARE lumped in with other income -- at least mine were -- and thus could under certain circumstances push one into the AMT. I really don't understand how this could be, and when I get in touch with my accountant on Monday (he was on vacation last week), I'm going to ask why.

The other surprise was that in the process of following this bouncing ball I discovered a BIG error in the return, costing me well over $1,000 in Federal taxes alone. Somebody (not me) copied the wrong number into a column somehow, and I had missed it when I reviewed the return back in April.

See -- the Fray can make you money, too.

slasher:

To my knowledge both Cap Gains and Dividends have a separate tax schedule free and clear from the AMT. It is worth a question to your accountant. I would like to know why also.

Sorry to be so long responding -- I just got the answer to my question from my accountant today.

The answer is that yes, capital gains taxes ARE computed on a separate basis from income taxes, but the computation that does this doesn't appear on either schedules A (the main one) or D (the one which reports capital gains.) If you look at just those schedules (as I did), it does APPEAR that capital gains are being lumped together with ordinary income (this is true of dividend income as well), and that they all come down to line 43 of Schedule A ("taxable income").

BUT, when the taxes owed are computed, INCLUDING the AMT computation, the tax on capital gains and qualifying dividend income IS at different rates than ordinary income. Since I had my taxes prepared professionally, this computation is invisible to me. It takes place in the accountant's computer and the result appears on line 44 (Tax). If I done my return myself, I would have seen the different treatments based upon source of income.

So the argument which this all harks back to -- that capital gains taxes should be indexed for inflation because they drive income and AMT calculations into higher brackets -- is false after all. And my reward for being a jelly-legged liberal who bothers to check his facts rather than simply asserting self-interested bullshit based upon nothing at all is, in this case, about $1,800 -- the amount of tax overpayment caused by the REAL error I discovered in the process.

slasher:

I had already assumed cap gains were zero tax. Even at 15%, if cap gains is your entire income, then you make out and also avoid the AMT. Now if I can only get a job that pays in such a way . . .

Don't try too hard. There are few "jobs" (except hedge fund management) that qualify for capital gains treatment.