Steven, you never lay out an intellectual argument for or against the tax treatment of carried interest, just a political warning. There's an argument for and against the long term capital gain treatment of carried interest. Additionally, some carried interest might be unrealized in a particular year, as in the case of a business turnaround where those gains can be realized only upon sale. That really sounds like capital gain treatment to me. We had the same arguments about the tax treatment of stock options. Their tax treatment was revised, wrongly I believe, so corporations need to expense them as an expense upon issuance (what if they are never executed? Can corporations then claim an expense write-off, like bad debt? Nonetheless, perhaps the carried interest tax laws need to be changed to be reflect at-risk considerations, but the law right now permits its use. Why should any apologize for following the law?

Steven, the perfect champion for this initiative would be our own Scott Brown, that "man of the people" who I'm sure would be ready and willing to introduce a new, more restrictive bill. It's election time, and Scott needs these type of opportunities to show the citizens of Massachusetts that he has now spurned the big financiers and has begun to see the light. Give Scott a call, Steven, and let us know what he thinks of the idea.

After he does away with the rule (not as President though) he can perhaps give the Bush era's underpayment back. He owns numerous mansions and apparently cleans most of them himself. What's he need the money for?

Okay...so the real question is how really shameless Romney is. He is certainly shameless enough to take advantage of a tasty loophole for the last ten years. But could he possibly be as shameless as to announce that the devil made him do it (is there a Mormon "devil") and that he will now seek redemption by disavowing carried interest? His friend, the aptly named Newt, managed to finesse his three marriages by making the last one Catholic, a sleek bit of shamelessness, but doesn't really talk about his (current) wife's six years of devoted Catholic adultery. Let's face it, in the competition for shamelessness, Romney and Gingrich are masters at the game though I'd give the edge to Newt. Using your daughters from your first wife to convince everyone that your second wife is lying about your third wife is some sort of matrimonial grand slam in the shamelessness department.

One can only hope that Romney comes out and supports doing away with such favorable treatment of such a small group of people. When I received a bonus from my work, it was taxed as ordinary income and the same should go for these fund managers and others that receive this tax break. I do not expect this to happen though as so far Romney and the other Republican candidates are all calling of lower taxes for the wealthy, and doing away with taxes that impact the wealthiest 1 or 2 percent of Americans in the form of capital gains taxes and the estate tax. No, Mitt Romney is not going to call for higher taxes on himself and his fellow 1 percenters.