Thoughts?

Capital gains income is generated from 4 main sources,

Buying/selling of Stocks and bonds,  buying and selling of precious stuff (like metals, art, coins, collectables) and land/real estate.  Most people who make under $200,000 do not have those types of assets laying around, so eliminiating the capital gains tax for those income groups will have little material difference.

The monster! How dare he, uh, let people keep their money?

(3...2...1...before someone comes in here and rails how this is a really bad idea, even though 47% of US citizens don't pay any income tax at all*, while pretending that that 47% that don't pay taxes don't exist and that anyone that is already paying capital gains is clearly rich and, thus, evil and should be stripped of all their wealth...no, I'm sorry...not stripped but allowed, under the enlightened largess of our betters in Washington, to keep what they let them keep.)

*This is a huge, huge problem and all the fault of that evil, Republican, president George W Bush. The monster.

Would it be possible for those of us in that limited categroy to, perhaps, keep our money? Thanks, I appreciate it.

(After all, if it isn't going to make much difference--about as good an argument to do away with these taxes as an other I've heard--I'd be thrilled to keep money that would otherwise go to feed a bloated Congressman and his tick on the body politic staff.)

Maybe without the capital gains tax it will encourgage income earners under $200K to invest their money in more riskier investments knowing they will not have to pay tax.

After the GFC people are less likely to invest rather than putting their money in the bank especially those on lower incomes and therefore this capital gains tax threshold would be beneficial for improving the economy and helping lower income earners accumulate capital.

I think you miss the point.

Which is that it's supposed to make it so people DO start buying stuff like that and get more investment minded and give incentive to plan for their future and to increase investments in general to kickstart the economy.

Additionally it would make it so things like QE and stock market biased economic policies(like those practiced under obama and bernake) help more then just the rich.

That REALLY isn't what this is.

He mentioned this offhand in a bigger question about his tax plan and for him to elaborate.

It's not a big campaign plank or anything.  Most people won't ever hear about it.

I just brought it up because it's a very intersting idea.

One that I think has a lot of merit.

You asked for thoughts, i gave you mine.

Not a terrible idea. But didn't he promise to balance the budget?

Exactly.  I'm all for as low taxes as possible for as many people as possible...but this does nothing to make that happen.  In order to offset the cost of pushing this through, we'll either have to borrow more money or cut funding to other programs.  Since Democrats refuse to cut any entitlements, and Republicans refuse to cut any overseas expenditures, I don't see how this is going to be paid for.