Wow this guy is full of it, changed his positions so much, this new flop can't even be trusted.
Obama specifies payroll, dividend tax plans
HONOLULU (Reuters) - Barack Obama's presidential campaign said on Thursday a potential hike in payroll taxes for wealthy Americans under an Obama administration would not occur for 10 years while taxes on dividends and capital gains would be capped at 20 percent.
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The new details, laid out in an opinion piece by the Illinois senator's advisers and on a conference call with reporters, added specificity to a key economic policy area that has drawn criticism from Republican presidential rival John McCain and Wall Street.
Obama previously had not given a timeline for a plan he says he would consider to increase payroll taxes for people making $250,000 or more annually. The increase would be used to shore up the U.S. Social Security program.
McCain, an Arizona senator who promises to support lower taxes, says Obama would raise taxes to fund social programs he has promised to support during his campaign.
The Republican's advisers said Obama's new tax details represented one more in a series of policy shifts by the Democrat, while the Obama campaign said his plans would represent a net tax cut greater than that proposed by McCain.
"Sen. Obama believes that one of the principal problems facing the economy today is the lack of discretionary income for middle-class wage earners," Obama economic policy director Jason Furman and senior economic adviser Austan Goolsbee wrote in the Wall Street Journal.
"That's why his plan would not raise any taxes on couples making less than $250,000 a year, nor on any single person with income under $200,000 -- not income taxes, capital gains taxes, dividend or payroll taxes."
Goolsbee and Furman said an increase in payroll taxes for wealthier Americans would be delayed for at least 10 years.
They also said the top capital-gains rate for Americans making over $250,000 a year would be 20 percent. Obama had said previously that dividend and capital-gains taxes could increase to as much as 28 percent.
SHIFT TO THE MIDDLE?
McCain's campaign said Obama's positions on taxes kept shifting over time and his past record was telling of what he would do as president.
"The reality of Barack Obama's record is the following: he has voted to raise taxes 94 times in his short time as a senator," said Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard and a top economic adviser to McCain.
She said she was "mystified" at how the Obama campaign calculated he would lower taxes more than McCain.
"Barack Obama can say it, but it doesn't make it true."
Andrew Busch, a global foreign exchange strategist at BMO Capital in Chicago, said the new tax policy details reflected Obama's move to the political center after a rise in poll numbers for McCain helped boost U.S. stock markets, which he said were jittery about an Obama White House.
"The (opinion piece) that we saw today in the Wall Street Journal is part of a path that Obama's taking which takes him back more towards the middle, more towards McCain's policies," said Busch.
"We're pleased ... to see that because there is tremendous uncertainty over Obama's plans for the economy and for the stock market -- and for the markets overall."
Obama, who is currently on vacation in Hawaii, returns to the campaign trail this weekend.
