Independently of Greenspan, Forstmann told me the correct tax on capital gains is zero. What we are talking about here is the essence of capitalism, which is why this has become the defining economic issue of the Republican Party. In the kind of capitalism we have here in the United States, people invest in each other. People with capital invest it in people without capital. Old people invest in young people.
Rich people invest in middle-class people and the middle class invests in poor people with promise.
People in cities invest in country people, and farm people in town people. When all this activity is at a high level, the economy is too. The more successful he is, the more I get in return. If he loses, I lose. Now, if the government tells me that if Forstmann succeeds, I have to pay Internal Revenue a high percentage of my share of his success, I will think twice about making the investment in the first place.