Tax and Spend Democrats

Factual Questions
1

Okay, first a few ground rules.

I don’t want this to be a Dems vs. Pubs thread. I don’t want hear about how Bush is evil, Rebpublicans rape the masses, and the Democrats are a bunch of pinko commie hippies that want everyone in sackcloth and hemp sandals.

I also don’t want this to move into GD territory. If that happens, I’d like the mods to just kill it.

Now, on to the question.

Lately, I’ve heard a lot of references to “Tax and Spend Democrats”. It’s made to sound like it’s a bad, bad thing. One of those nefarious lefty things that, to anyone with a sound mind, is clearly a bad, bad thing. It seems that it’s such a bad, bad thing that nobody even bothers to clearly explain what it is.

So, what is it, and why is it bad?

Sounds to me that it means that this particular nogoodnik advocates taxing the people (as governments tend to do), and then spending said tax money on stuff. Be it military stuff, domestic stuff, or other stuff-like stuff.

As a normal person, I see this as making sense, seeing as how I also bring in revenue and then pay bills with it.

So, what makes referring to someone as a “Tax and Spend Democrat” an inherently bad thing?

Generally, the people using it as an negative description of someone are also the types that support increased spending and reduced revenue (ie. tax cuts).

From a common man perspective, this seems like cutting my billable hours in half and buying a new car. Unless I’ve somehow got money in the bank to cover the difference, how is that a good idea?

Is this another case of a particular group (in this case Republicans) trademarking a phrase and using it as a de facto insult, or is there a huge piece of the puzzle I’m missing?

-Joe, apolitical

2

The political goal behind characterizing someone as a “Tax and Spend Democrat” is that it means that the politician is in favor of raising taxes on you, Joe Average Guy, in order to put more money into the Federal bureaucracy, that will be wasted on government programs that accomplish little or nothing. So, the “Tax and Spend” guy is just lowering your take home pay essentially.

This is in contrast to the Democrats portraying a Republican as someone who wants to cut taxes only for the very wealthy and then building up bigger deficits as the Republicans try to build an enormous military-industrial complex.

3

You miss that these appeals are to taxpayers. Every dollar the government takes in taxes is one a taxpayer could have used to buy something else. During most of this century Democrats won elections by promising to spend money on people. “I’m going to give you something” is always more popular than, “We can’t afford to give you anything”. To counter this Republicans sought to link unpopular taxes with the popular spending. Thus the phrase" tax and spend liberal" The idea being to get voters to think “They want to give my money to someone else” rather than “Hey, they are giving away free money”

4

To somewhat expand on the ideas of the previous posters, and knowing that I can keep this from going into GD with a bit of effort ;), the Republicans (not just them, but they’re in the public eye) who use this phrase think the best place for money is in the hands of the people who have earned it, as opposed to the hands of the government. They generally disagree with large-scale social welfare programs on the grounds that they think people would be better off in the long run if they were given a less-taxed economy where it would, presumably, be easier to achieve wealth through honest effort. I can’t give a good exposition of Supply-Side Economics here, but you can Google it and see the main theoretical basis for their thinking on the issue.

All of that theory is well and good, but recall that Republicans are trying to appeal to the lower-middle-class, which feels left out by government programs and unfairly taxed by a government they see as intent on giving their money to welfare recipients. If a political party can form a link in their minds between the opposite party and their tax rates, that party will benefit from their votes.

5

“Tax and spend” has a certain catchy sound to it. If you say it with a sneer, it sounds like a bad thing. So does “good morning”. It’s a political cliche with which to brand the opposition, although with the present record deficit I think “borrow and spend Republicans” may gain some ground.

6

Also note that “wasting your tax money” is a euphemism for “spending money on stuff that doesn’t benefit you.”

7

Well, not quite.

Most people think a cut in taxes will result in the government getting less money, while an increase in taxes will result in the government getting more money. Seems logical, right? But it’s not necessarily true. In fact, there is evidence to suggest the opposite is true within a given range. This is because a cut in taxes will foster economic growth, resulting in new wealth via the “multiplier effect.” So at a lower tax rate, there will be more capital gains on which to pay taxes, and more people will be paying taxes (due to more jobs, higher wages, and thus more tax money being paid). In other words, it’s not a zero-sums game.