Topic: Newsmax
A promo for the June issue of Newsmax magazine describes its lead story as an alarmist attack piece essentially predicting -- if the headline "President Obama and the Stock Market Crash" is any indication -- that electing Barack Obama will ruin the stock market. We haven't seen the actual article yet, written by conservative John Fund, but the promo distorts Obama's views on taxes.
The promo states:
Indeed, Obama makes no bones about his plans to go on a tax rampage. Not only would he increase the capital-gains tax rate from 15 percent to as much as 28 percent, he wants to allow the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010, which effectively raises taxes on Americans by tens of billions of dollars.
This ignores that Obama has said he plans to cut taxes for those making $75,000 a year or less. It also ignores that 28 percent was the capital-gains tax rate throughout the 1990s, which wedon't recall was a horrible time for the economy.
The promo also states:
He also wants to do away with the $102,000 FICA payroll tax cap, which means anyone making over $102,000 would pay an additional 7 percent in taxes on earned income.
In fact, Obama has never said he would "do away" with the current FICA (Social Security) cap. He has suggested raising the current limit and has also suggested he would consider a "donut hole" that would exempt income immediately above the current $102,000 cap from Social Security taxes, then resume taxes above a higher amount, such as $200,000 or $250,000.
