Forget Joe the Plumber: How about Joe Investor?

The terribly mismanaged McCain campaign has been blowing a lot of steam recently about its new messiah "Joe the Plumber" whom Obama's tax plan would allegedly hurt. This strategy (like many in McCain's poorly executed campaign) backfired after a background check into this Joe fellow revealed that he is not even a licensed plumber and is a partisan republican rather than an undecided voter as he claimed to be. McCain's appeals not to "raise Joe's taxes" also lacked ammunition given that it appeared Joe's taxes would actually go down under Obama's plan. Another brilliant campaign move by a McCain campaign that allowed Obama to have a 3 to 1 fundraising advantage by taking public financing while for reasons that I cannot explain has chosen to ignore Senator Obama's close association with his radical, openly racist and anti-American preacher of twenty years, Jeremiah Wright. McCain's campaign will go down as one of the worst run campaigns in American history.... and I haven't even mentioned the buffoon Sarah Palin yet....

So instead of a bunch of gibberish about "Joe the Plumber" and Sarah Palin's nonsensical talk about appealing to "Real America" (whatever that means) let's talk about my hypothetical acquaintance: Joe the Investor. World financial markets have been battered by the domino effect of a housing bubble fueled by speculation and risky loans coupled with the inability of Alan Greenspan and an overly libertarian Fed to regulate derivatives trading. However, my friend Joe the Investor has some cash on hand and is looking to invest somewhere though he's not sure where. In Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi's America, Joe will be looking at the prospect of his capital gains taxes on investment profit rising from 15% (current level) to either 20 or 28% (Obama at one point said raise it to 20% and at another suggested 28% was better or more "fair" or whatever). John McCain, on the other hand, wants to lower capital gains to 7.5%. So in this global economy with so many potential places to invest one's money around the world, in whose America does it make more sense to invest: Obama's or McCain's? Investment creates jobs and growth, both of which we desperately need right now. America must retain its competitive edge in this global economy. It is time to put a temporary moratorium on the capital gains tax. If somebody can convince me that raising the capital gains tax will somehow help America's economy, I will give that person a cookie. Expect entries every day until the election.... peace