A San Francisco Perspective: Capital Gains, Taxes, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama

SAN FRANCISCO, California -- It seems that last week's Democratic debate at the Constitution Center in Pennsylvania has spurred a new discussion about the United States economy. That discussion primarily surrounds taxes on capital gains. These taxes are directly appended to proceeds from the sales of securities (stocks, options, funds, etc) that don't have any federally withheld taxes.

Therefore, taxes on such gains are paid for during tax time. The issue between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton seems to be the level at which capital gains should be taxed, with Clinton putting a verbal cap at 20 percent and Obama going all the way to a 28 percent if needed. It seems that Obama is going all the way with the old-school trick -- the political tactic of promises that can never be kept - that he won't raise taxes for middle class Americans making under $200,000.

It seems that a tax promise for people under $200,000 income is going to be a hard promise to keep considering the Democratic platform, including health care for all, more child credit, proposed money for college bound individuals, improved access to health care for seniors and veterans. How Democrats, who are the favored choice of most (if not many, myself included) Americans, are going to live up to their promises is something to be seriously considered. Rolling back tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans will certainly help to pay for much of what is talked about, but making hollow and downright unbelievable promises about never hiking taxes -- and Obama actually going to so far as to say he will actually 'cut' taxes for people in certain brackets -- seems patently impossible.

But the issue of capital gains taxes isn't as shallow as to just affect hedge fund managers, as Obama seeks to tell the American people. It's something that affects every senior citizen, every employee that works for a company (or has) that gives a 401k or IRA account, every family that saves money for their kids to go to college and, of course, all people who casually and serious invest or trade securities (stocks, options, bonds, futures, etc).