Capital Gains taxes were asked about in the last Democratic Presidential Primary Debate.

Capital Gains are the profits someone makes from investments on Wall Street. Reporter Gibson asked both Obama and Hillary on raising these taxes.

Here is the exchange:

GIBSON: All right. You have, however, said you would favor an increase in the capital gains tax. As a matter of fact, you said on CNBC, and I quote, "I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton," which was 28 percent. It's now 15 percent. That's almost a doubling, if you went to 28 percent.

But actually, Bill Clinton, in 1997, signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent.

OBAMA: Right.

GIBSON: And George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent.

OBAMA: Right.

GIBSON: 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?

OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.

Obama went onto try to tie the desire to raise capital gains to 28% by referring to a loophole which private equity hedge fund managers are using to only pay 15% on personal income. Below is Hillary's response:

CLINTON: I wouldn't raise it above the 20 percent, if I raised it at all. I would not raise it above what it was during the Clinton administration.

GIBSON: If I raised it at all. Would you propose an increase in the capital gains tax?

CLINTON: You know, Charlie, I'm going to have to look and see what the revenue situation is. You know, we now have the largest budget deficit we've ever had, $311 billion. We went from a $5.6 trillion projected surplus, to what we have today, which is a $9 trillion debt. I don't want to raise taxes against on anybody.

Ok, firstly there are loopholes in the corporate and partnership tax code that allow these private equity and hedge fund managers to make billions while being taxed at a 15% tax rate instead of the 35% tax rate, which is what working people are paying in taxes.

Now there have been a series of bills introduced into Congress to close these loopholes:

Sander M. Levin introduced H.R. 2834, Charles Rangel has this an a provision in his House Tax Bill H.R. 3970.

In the Senate, Chuck Grassley along with Max Baucsus introduced S.1624 - To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide that the exception from the treatment of publicly traded partnerships as corporations for partnerships with passive-type income shall not apply to partnerships directly or indirectly deriving income from providing investment adviser and related asset management services.

Those private equity loopholes can be addressed separately, not directly connected to the actual capital gains rates, so Obama, trying to advert his capital gains tax increase, by discussing the private equity and hedge fund managers loophole, well the implication and connection is a little misleading.

So, what's the point? Closing these loopholes does not imply one has to raise the capital gains tax to 28%.

What about Gibson's claim that lower capital gains taxes generates more revenues in capital gains? Well, it appears in the short term that's partially correct and frankly I searched high and low on capital gains rates and found conflicting information and so did Fact Check.org in terms of the long term research on the effect of capital gains.

Gibson’s claim is partially right. Cutting the capital gains tax rate does stimulate at least a temporary, short-term increase in revenue by giving owners of appreciated assets (such as real estate or stocks) an incentive to sell them and turn their paper profits into cash. The boost in capital gains income can offset the loss to the government from the lower rate

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Since there is so much conflicting information, clearly most analysis must be done to create a tax policy that is Progressive. It's very clear the rich are getting richer and the middle class is being wiped out in the United States. Tax code has huge ramifications on our economy and I cannot think of a single policy area more misunderstood as well as ignored by the American people. The most boring areas of policy and law are precisely where corporations love to focus. Complex, difficult to analyze, understand, obscure legislation are the best places to hide loopholes and special interest incentives. It's a very nice way to increase greed and not be scrutinized!

Unfortunately digging into policy positions and proposals is almost near impossible since corporations have phony think tanks out there plus, there is just an ungodly amount of spin attention and almost no media objective coverage on the candidates actual proposals, especially tax proposals. Once again, there are strong differences between Obama and Hillary and you must dig them out to realize it.