The Wall Street mess now takes center stage in the presidential race. With company after company biting the dust, can John McCain survive as the representative of the incumbent party?
So far, McCain has focused on a populist criticism of Wall Street and its irresponsibility, firing away at corporate greed and lending practices.
But he has to fuse the issues of the economy and taxes — to show how Barack Obama’s tax proposals would lead to a catastrophic implosion of the nation’s capital base.
With the top Wall Street houses crashing for a want of capital, how can Obama justify an increase, and perhaps a doubling, of the capital-gains tax?
Obama has already said he might drop his tax hikes if the economy weakens. After noting that it’s pretty sad when your best idea for how to help the economy is to abandon your own proposals, McCain should call on Obama to give up on those new taxes right now.
People will sit on their capital rather than invest it if their gains are to be taxed at twice the current rate. And raising taxes on a troubled economy is akin to bleeding a sick patient — mideival “medicine” that does more to kill than to cure.
McCain needs to force Obama to choose between his leftist commitment to income redistribution and the common-sense point that higher taxes on investors and “the rich” would merely deepen the economic mess.
If Obama refuses to abandon his tax hikes, he’ll be seen as putting his ideology ahead of the nation’s needs. If he does the reverse, he’ll be admitting that his tax program has been a mistake — and, by recanting, show how unsteady his hand would be on the tiller.
Hiking taxes at the outset of a slowdown has always made things worse. McCain need point no further back than the first President George Bush, whose tax increase hit just as the economy was slowing from the Reagan expansion — triggering a recession that let Bill Clinton win the White House.
As the financial failures spread, voters will focus on the bad news and be inclined to hand the White House to the party that’s out of power. But if they focus focus on the cure Obama proposes, the bad economy could work to McCain’s benefit.
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Obama, with his income re-distribution/big government plans, is a socialist. I think it’s high time someone put a name to it. I don’t think most Americans are quite ready for a whole new economic/government system.
Senator McCain has good instincts on most subjects, but it appears he still does not fully believe that there is a strong link between tax rates and economic growth. If he did, he would have been blasting away at Senator Obama for weeks. Fortunately, the first debate is on foreign policy … and there’s still time for tutoring from Jack Kemp and Larry Kudlow!
McCain will get it - I think he’s waiting for the right moment. BTW, Dick, have you heard the rumor that Obama is going to dump Biden with the excuse that Biden’s health is failing and select Hillary to be his VP candidate?
Regardless as to whether McCain or Obama wins the White House………..taxes are going to be raised….to what degree; well that will depend upon who is elected. I think that Americans are reserved to the fact that we are going to pay for the financial weapon (greed) of Wall Street…choosing one of the candidates will not resolve the financial crisis…….bend over America and receive the “rich.”
aliljekrans……Good theory……but that is not going to happen. The Clintons want Obama to loose…….but I believe that he is going to get elected, with or without the Clintons. With friends like the Clintons, Obama doesn’t need enemies.