He's right about the rhetoric of job creators to some degree, and also right that tax reductions do not automatically result in more jobs. Both of those answers are too simplistic.
He's right that jobs are created in part by demand from consumers. But you also have to give credit to risk-takers, particularly in areas where risk takers invest a lot of money into products that are essentially new to the market. For instance, when apple created the ipod, there were few if any consumers demanding or even asking for portable mp3 players. But apple decided to put a ton of money into R&D, took a risk, and it was amazingly successful. And that risk-taking did contribute to creating jobs, no matter how you look at it.
There's no one-size-fits-all answer to taxes and government monetary policy. You have to look at the individual policy and decide whether it makes sense. Saying "taxing the wealthy is always best" is just as bad as saying "cutting taxes for the wealthy always creates jobs."
I agree his presentation is well done. Did any of you notice it was supported entirely by anecdotal evidence, and no hard evidence whatsoever? When a presentation is most slick, that's when you most have to critically analyze its contents. And honestly there wasn't much hard evidence in anything he had to say.
I have a lot of questions about changing the capital gains tax. If we changed it, what would the real results be? I don't think it's a simple answer and I don't think it's something you can automatically claim will be beneficial just because a lot of rich people make money from capital gains. What do other countries tax cap gains at? Would we see foreign investment in our markets diminish? Would rich people in the US start putting their money overseas if we raised cap gains taxes? I'd like to see studies and statistics and actual facts before deciding which way to jump on that issue. This guy presented none of that, and just claimed that because rich people pay it, cap gains should be taxed the same as income tax. That sounds overly simplistic and not very well thought out.
On the cap gains issue, I just quickly googled another question - what percentage of the budget comes from capital gains taxes? Check it out
here. Apparently, it's less than 6% most years. Even if you doubled it, that's only a 6% increase in revenue. What would we be giving up for that? Again, none of these issues are addressed.
Based on the lack of data, I'd say it's a poor presentation and has the ring of propaganda. Moral of the story: don't believe everything you hear, even if it sounds good and you really want to.