At a Wednesday roundtable among business leaders, Obama took a shot at the Republican front-runner by insisting America is already “great”. We can do even better, but the reason I’m so confident about our future is not because of our government, or the size of our GDP, or our military, but because everybody in this country that I meet regardless of their station in life, their race, their religion, the region they live in.
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The United States has emphasized to China that industrial espionage by its government or its proxies in cyberspace goes beyond traditional intelligence gathering, Obama said.
“Now, you wouldn’t know any of this if you were listening to the folks who are seeking this office that I occupy”, Obama said to laughter.
Bush’s tax proposal, according to New York Times finance columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, would raise the tax rates that the hedge fund managers pay on the money they “earn”. Bush followed suit with a salvo against the carried interest provisions, although it was part of a comprehensive tax reform plan that included lower taxes across all income brackets and a reduction in the corporate tax rate.
“If we shut the tax loophole, we might double the variety of staff in America’s job-coaching packages, we might assist one other 4 million extra college students afford school”, Obama stated.
Obama wants Congress to lift spending caps that restrict the budget for domestic health, research and education programs.
President Obama is shown speaking during a town hall meeting in Iowa, Sept. 14, 2015. He had some choice words in 2007 regarding the tax-rate disparity, but his focus on the issue has been increasingly pointed in the past year.
Obviously, ending the carried-interest tax dodge won’t by itself balance the budget, but it would send a powerful message: First, that bipartisan compromise is possible, second that Washington is paying attention to the will of the people and their concerns about income inequality and, third, that Republicans in Congress aren’t necessarily the playthings of Wall Street fat cats. The hedge fund guys will come out just fine. “That’s what we see as a 2017 conversation”.
Obama didn’t mention Trump or any of the Republican candidates by name.
Two leading candidates on the Republican side [one of which is Donald Trump] have said that we should eliminate the carried interest loophole [for foreign or hedge fund profits].
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Mr. Trump has made closing that loophole a talking point in his campaign and – not surprisingly – it reliably gets a roar approval from his audiences.
