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The tax on capital gains directly affects investment decisions, the mobility and flow of risk capital... the ease or difficulty experienced by new ventures in obtaining capital, and thereby the strength and potential for growth in the economy.

Even tax breaks that are supposed to help the middle class too often skew toward the wealthy. Consider the mortgage interest deduction. While political leaders in both parties have long considered it untouchable, it actually helps those at the top of the income scale far more than those at the bottom.

I don't want to get into the 'who's a hostage-taker' discussion here, but what is the estate tax? It's a double tax on death. Economists will tell you that it's really not a tax that soaks the rich, but it's a tax on capital that deprives business investment and therefore job creation.

People try to live within their income so they can afford to pay taxes to a government that can't live within its income.

Rich people don't pay taxes? Of course they pay taxes - they pay tons in taxes. They pay for everyone else who doesn't pay taxes.

If people want capital gains taxed more like the highest rate on income, that's a good discussion. Maybe that's the way to help close the deficit.

Rent-control laws disproportionately benefit the non-poor because the elite pull strings, work the system and are better connected than the non-poor.

When you have a tax system in which most of the exemptions and the lowest rates benefit the richest, all in the name of job creation, all that happens is that the rich get richer.

Tax bills create wealth. They help people live better.