Posted by
Always To The Right on Monday, September 15, 2008 10:43:16 AM
The new ad from Team McCain certainly has the virtue of timeliness.
With the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the purchase of Merrill
Lynch this morning, crisis describes the financial markets well,
and perhaps even understates the case. The campaign makes the argument
that only proven reformers can clean up the government’s handling of
Wall Street and make it work for all of its investors again
Will this argument stick? Both campaigns have major ties to the
Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac lobbying that helped force the enormous
government bailout that left the Treasury unable to respond to Lehman
Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and AIG today. McCain has a real track record
of reform at the federal level, but not necessarily in management of
the economy. Obama and Biden have even less, though, and expect
McCain’s team to point that out in comparative advertising in the
future.
Team McCain did a good job in getting in front of the issue, but
today’s turmoil will likely redound to Barack Obama’s benefit unless
they can start talking policy and how Obama’s tax and spending
proposals will hurt the people most needed to return stability back to
the markets. Now more than ever, we need low capital-gains tax rates to
encourage investment and risk-taking in order to create more strength
in the economy. An Obama increase on these tax rates would pull more
capital out when it’s desperately needed, and could create a
catastrophe out of a patch of turbulence.