ABC Cap Gains Tax Hit Ignores Charles Gibson’s ‘Finest Hour’ Questions at April 2008 Dem Debate

To add an exclamation point to Brad Wilmouth's great post last night (“ABC Pushes for Tax Hike on Capital Gains, Ignores Likelihood of Tax Revenue Loss”) — in ignoring the likelihood that raising the capital gains tax rate would reduce capital gains tax collections, the network also “somehow” forgot now-retired World News Tonight anchor Charles Gibson's aggressive questioning on the topic during an April 2008 Democratic Party presidential debate. That night, Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, who was then the host of ABC's Sunday morning news show, drove leftists crazy (noted at the time in NewsBusters posts here and here ), because, as NB's Brent Bozell noted, “For once it veered from liberal orthodoxy.” One of Gibson's “veers” consisted of questions he asked presidential contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton about capital gains taxation. The now-defunct New York Sun characterized it as “Gibson's Finest Hour” (I would suggest that it might really have been “Gibson's Only Fine Hour”), and wrote it up thusly (internal link added by me; bolds are mine): … for a few moments in yesterday's presidential debate on ABC News, anchorman Charles Gibson sounded like a charter member of the Club for Growth or Americans for Tax Reform. It came when Mr. Gibson questioned Senator Obama about the capital gains tax. Mr. Gibson quoted Mr. Obama as talking about raising the tax to 28% from 15%. “But actually, Bill Clinton, in 1997, signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent,” Mr. Gibson said. “And George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent. And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?”

Posted by on January 30, 2011. Filed under News, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry