Republican Study Committee "Alternative Plan": This Can't Possibly Be Real, Can It?

Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 09:49:57 AM PDT

Well, the House Republican Study Committee has released their own minimalist proposal for dealing with the financial crisis. And to be honest, it stumps me, because it seems like self-parody -- something we'd make up to insult them.

It's a bit baffling. The conservative Republican counterproposal to the bailout is, of course... to banish all capital gain taxes, so that rich people can save us by "selling their unwanted assets." Um... WTF?

Two-Year Suspension of the Capital Gains: Immediately suspend the capital gains rate from 15% for individuals and 35% for corporations. By encouraging corporations to sell unwnated assets, this provision would unleash funds and materials with which to create jobs and grow the economy. After the two-year suspension, capital gains rates would return to present levels but assets would be indexed permanently for any inflationary gains.

Am I missing something? You don't pay capital gains on something you've lost money on, so capital gains tax doesn't apply to any of the "toxic" assets in question. And if we're asking investors and corporations to sell off more of their stable assets, that's simply going to further depress the market prices of those assets, which is the very last damn thing we need right now. Additionally, the corporations in dire straits don't need incentive to sell their profitable assets. If their choice is bankruptcy or not bankruptcy, the tax situation isn't going to be a prime motivator.

So aside from being the same ideologically blinkered trickle-down nonsense that they've been pushing on us for years, I don't follow this "proposal" at all. This is akin to walking into a doctor's office with five gunshot wounds, and having the doctor shoot you one last time so that the first five don't hurt as bad in comparison.

By what possible measure could anyone honestly believe that the solution to this crisis is to eliminate the capital gains tax on corporations and the wealthy? The only thing I can come up with is that the purveyors of this nonsense are goddamn, no good, flim-flamming bullsh*tting soulless America-hating megacrooks who have absolutely no interest in anything except getting a narrow class of people out of paying their damn taxes -- and are willing to scream "Depression!" at everyone if they don't get it.

Whoever wrote this alternative "plan" shouldn't merely be fired -- they should be fired into the sun.

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Republican Study Committee "Alternative Plan": This Can't Possibly Be Real, Can It?