Beleaguered Republicans should create a badly needed preelection initiative with one of their perennially winning issues, taxes: They should index capital gains to inflation.
Political issues are usually divided into two major categories: social issues (like abortion, drug use, gay marriage, or capital punishment) and economic issues (like welfare, taxes, and health care).
Higher taxes on capital gains and dividends, abstracting from issues of equity and fairness, reduce real economic growth, cause weaker consumption and decreases in business capital spending, reduce employment, and labor force growth, and help bring about less potential output.