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Hillary Clinton will today call for a hike in the top capital gains tax rate. This proposal marks a major departure from a promise she made in 2008 stating she would not raise the capital gains tax higher than 20 percent. 

At a Democrat Primary debate held on April 16, 2008, Clinton said:

“I wouldn’t raise it above the 20% if I raised it at all.”

At the time of her statement, the capital gains tax rate was 15 percent. But since President Obama took office it has been increased by 63 percent, to a 23.8 percent rate. 

“Hillary Clinton is old enough to remember the capital gains tax reductions of 1978, 1981, 1997 and 2003 that spurred investment in new firms, created jobs and increased tax revenues,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “Sadly, Hillary is not wise enough to have learned the simple lesson from those decades: reducing the capital gains tax is part of any pro-growth agenda.”

Also today, Clinton will undoubtedly continue her crusade to claim upper earners do not pay their “fair share” of taxes. But official government tax data contradicts her claims. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the top one percent of households already pay 24 percent of all federal taxes and the top 20 percent of households pay almost 69 percent of all federal taxes. The top one percent of households pay an average total tax rate of 29 percent while the middle quintile pays an average total tax rate of just over 11 percent.