Thank you. Dunno why my <ctrl> F didn’t find it – maybe I spelled “grover” wrong?
At any rate. He didn’t talk about taxes there (though he does want them lower). His comment about the building blocks of the Democratic party needing government didn’t seem so much from the revenue side as the regulatory one.
Kind of a dumb set of remarks though, I’ll agree. In particular the trial lawyer thing. I support tort reform, but the kinds of things we’re talking about grew from traditional common-law torts and it’s our side (the pro reform side) who are “running to the government” for legislative relief from the current system.
Traditionally the Republican party has had a wealthy base (and also traditionally the Republican party only numbered 35-40% while the Democratic party numbered almost 60% of the populace) with little support among the poor.
Eventually, in large part starting in the 60s many of the Southern poor abandoned the Democratic ship due to the Democrats courting of the black vote.
The Republican party wasn’t really a part that was active in social policy prior to the 70s. It was a party that for years had been in the minority but mostly believed in small government and a strong free market economy. The Republican height prior to the modern day was in the early 20th/late 19th when America toyed with Imperialism somewhat.
The growth of the Republican party is in many ways what makes it different today.
The Republican party is much more diverse now as there are many lower income types that number in the Republican ranks (although these numbers are deceptive and I’ll explain that later.)
But some of the old trends stay true, 70% of the poorest Americans voted for Kerry and 64% of the wealthiest Americans voted for Bush.
Bush won the majority in all income brackets over $50,000/annually.
Red states do tend to receive more Federal funding than they receive but that isn’t a measure of individual poverty but more a measure of the fact many red states are big western states with few people. These states suck up a lot of federal highway money but don’t have the tax base to “pay it back.”
But you can’t really say the interstate highway system benefits any one state as it is designed to link the entire country up.
I find that as ridiculous as anything else he said. He engineered the takeover of the house in 1994, because he believed it was the key to controlling the future of the country.