Charlie Gibson Disgraces ABC News Debate: Uses False Right Wing Talking Points and Tabloid Attacks

Apparent GOP operative Charlie Gibson needs to retract the false premise of his GOP tax talking point on the capital gains--or he should be fired. The whole debate was a disgrace. False talking points from Charlie Gibson, and a former Clinton staffer stooping to Sean Hannity tabloid trash (regarding the dubiously relevant Weather Underground story.) Just absolutely disgusting.

Sorry, Charlie: You're Wrong on the Cap Gains Tax

Charlie Gibson really hammered the candidates--both candidates--over their proposals to raise the capital gains tax. Why woudl they do that, he asked, when lowering the cap gains tax during the 1990s raised revenue?

My recollection was that Gibson's premise was wrong, but I couldn't remember the details of why. Fortunately, I know a few economists. Here's one of them--Jason Furman of the Brookings Institute--with the story:

Joint Committee on Taxation and Treasury both score raising capital gains taxes as raising revenues. There is some behavioral response but much of that is timing and doesn't affect the medium-to-long term revenue loss.

Note that the experience after the 1997 cut and the 2003 cut is not a meaningful way to assess the impact of capital gains tax cuts on revenues because so many things were happening simultaneously. The JCT score of the capital gains cut in 1997 was a few billion dollars annually. The 2003 cut was something like $5 billion annually. But capital gains revenues can go up or down by tens of billions annually. So it is hard to look at the noisy data and infer ex post the revenue impact of these changes.

Or, to put it more simply, Gibson's logic was flawed.

Update: Tapped agrees: THESE QUESTIONS ARE A DISGRACE.

A woman asks if Obama "believes in the American flag" because he doesn't wear a flag pin.

Charlie Gibson says that questions about the flag are "all over the internet" -- along with Pamela Anderson's sex tape, cats with bad grammar, and Rick Astley. Journalism at it's finest.

Obama says he "reveres" flag. Says he shows patriotism by trying to make America better.

"This is the kind of manufactured issue that distracts us from" the issues.

And now, we're on to William Ayers. Gaaah. Obama says Ayers is someone Obama knows ... says he's also friendly with Tom Coburn who wants to give the death penalty to people who perform abortions. Attacks the whole idea of guilt by association, says "the American people are smarter than that."