Since the MSM is incapable of asking any detailed questions of Senator Obama, here’s a new one that’s come up on capital-gains taxes for small businesses.

From Obamas’s website on his new plan to help small businesses:

Barack Obama believes that we need to encourage investment in small businesses to help create jobs and turn our economy around. That’s why Obama will eliminate all capital gains taxes on investments made in small and start-up businesses. Unlike John McCain, who wants to give $200 billion in new tax cuts to America’s largest and most profitable businesses, Barack Obama wants to cut taxes for the small businesses that create jobs but struggling [sic] with restricted access to credit alongside skyrocketing health care and energy costs.

Where are the details on this? Olbermann ran an extended Joe the Plumber/Obama clip last night, and the last thing Obama said to Joe was about how this capital-gains tax cut would help him. Sure, it would help Joe — if at some undetermined date in the future Joe is able to sell his business for more than he paid for it. You pay the capital-gains tax when you cash out — but what about the crushing taxes he’ll pay while he’s actually operating his business? Under the Obama plan, a small-business owner might get a tax break, in the distant future — but long after the time when a tax cut might make the difference between his business surviving, expanding, and hiring new workers, or not.

The National Venture Capital Association has issued this statement:

The zero capital gains rate for investment in small business is the most intriguing component and obviously would be favorable if it included venture investment but its too early to get excited – yet the direction sounds encouraging. As with all policy proposals, the devil is in the details as to how this would be implemented.

Obama’s not sharing the devilish details until after the election.