The Trail

For much of the 1990s, most capital gains were taxed at 28 percent. The balanced-budget agreement reached between Clinton and Republican congressional leaders in 1997 brought that rate to 20 percent. Bush and the Republicans lowered it to 15 percent in 2003.

Until that year, dividends from stocks and other investments were taxed as ordinary income. And since most of that income went to the affluent, dividends were taxed at higher rates -- as high as 39.6 percent under Clinton. Bush also cut that rate to 15 percent in 2003.

By choosing a 20 percent tax, Obama is bringing tax rates on investments up to a midway point for families earning more than $250,000. Families below that level would continue paying the existing 15 percent rate. Obama economic aides Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee noted that a 20 percent capital gains rate is well below the level set by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 -- and Bush didn't even think to lower the rate on dividends in his first round of tax cuts.

-- Jonathan Weisman

'THE OBAMA NATION'

Book Said to Be 'Full Of False . . . Attacks'

Barack Obama's campaign is aggressively contesting a new book criticizing the senator from Illinois, putting out a 41-page memo attacking what the campaign says is "full of false, rehashed attacks."

The memo was the latest criticism of "The Obama Nation," by conservative author Jerome R. Corsi. It has risen to the top of bestseller lists even as many of its allegations against Obama have been disproved by media outlets.

The campaign not only criticized parts of the book -- pointing out, for instance, that Obama did not give money to a Kenyan politician, as Corsi suggests -- but also rebuked the author for some of his controversial remarks. Corsi had once referred to Islam as a "virus" and Pope John Paul II as "senile."

The sharp reaction reflects, in part, the campaign of 2004, when Corsi wrote a book called "Unfit for Command," in which veterans attacked Sen. John F. Kerry's Vietnam War record.

"Jerome Corsi is a discredited liar who is peddling another piece of garbage in order to continue the Bush-Cheney politics he helped perpetuate four years ago," said Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor. "His is one of what will likely be many lie-filled books rushed to print this election cycle that are cobbled together from debunked Internet sources to make money and advance a partisan agenda. We will forcefully respond to these smears with all means at our disposal."