# Why do Republicans hate the poor? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 29, 2003, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346 "2003-05-29T19:49:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Saxman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f6c823/32.png) [@Saxman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saxman)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346/1 "2003-05-29T19:49:53Z")
(or, “My Salute To Classic GD Threads”) [Tax Law Omits Child Credit in Low-Income Brackets](http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/29/politics/29CHIL.html) > [@](#): > > “I don’t know why they would cut that out of the bill,” said Senator Blanche Lincoln, the Arkansas Democrat who persuaded the full Senate to send the credit to many more low income families before the provision was dropped in conference. “These are the people who need it the most and who will spend it the most. These are the people who buy the blue jeans and the detergent and who will stimulate the economy with their spending.” > [@](#): > > A spokeswoman for Mr. Voinovich said the senator would have been happy to extend the child credits, but believed that the entire package should not pass $350 billion. The tax writers were free to reduce the dividend tax cut, noted the spokeswoman, Marcie Ridgway. Republicans preferred to give dividend tax cuts to the rich instead of child credits to the poor. Why do Republicans hate the poor so much? Plenty of middle-class families will be getting the credit. Isn’t the conservative American dream all about pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps? The credit would have especially helped low-income folks, most in need of a demonstration of “compassionate conservatism”, to do just that. (So perhaps my question should be: why do Republicans hate America so much?) ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346/2 "2003-05-29T20:01:41Z")
Don’t the poor get EITC? Don’t the really poor also pay a 0% marginal rate? Until you’ve shown that the omission of one benefit (a tax credit, which implicitly is based upon meaningful tax debits, i.e., some meaningful contribution to the tax rolls), vis a vis a group who does receive two additional benefits not necessarily available to all the middle-class or “rich” (i.e., the EITC and low to no federal tax burden, as well as perhaps drawing on certain entitlement programs), I don’t think you’ve demonstrated what you think you’ve demonstrated. (Note that I’m buying into, for the moment, your amateur psychonalytic theory that the only reason for allocating economic benefits and burdens in a particular way is “hatred” of the party burdened – which I think you would disclaim if it were attributed to you vis a vis your apparent preference to shift more/all of these economic burdens to the middle class/“rich” – though maybe you wouldn’t disclaim it). ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346/3 "2003-05-29T20:06:27Z")
Another way of putting it is there is only so much you can cut the taxes of people who pay very little tax. Others have demonstrated/can demonstrate that the tax system of the U.S. has over the past years moved more and more toward one in which the “very rich” pay a larger proportion of all federal revenues, and the “very poor” pay a minute share. If the poor aren’t taking appreciably less in gov’t services (maybe they are; cite it), then the net effect is that the tax regime overall is increasingly balanced on the shoulders of the upper middle class and rich, to the benefit of everyone (including the poor) below, and the “flatness” that in the past was sought to ensure everyone paid some tax burden is less and less present. ---
**Author:** ![5\_time\_champ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/278dde/32.png) [@5\_time\_champ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5_time_champ)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346/4 "2003-05-29T20:07:44Z")
Umm- because poor people don’t make big donations to the Republicans. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346/5 "2003-05-29T20:11:01Z")
If King George Voinovich is a Republican in anything but name, I’m a rocket scientist. The man is simply a political weasel without the slightest ideology. Ohio produces such grrreat politicians. Julie ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346/6 "2003-05-29T20:18:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Huerta88 \* > \*\*Another way of putting it is there is only so much you can cut the taxes of people who pay very little tax. > > Others have demonstrated/can demonstrate that the tax system of the U.S. has over the past years moved more and more toward one in which the “very rich” pay a larger proportion of all federal revenues, and the “very poor” pay a minute share.\*\* [http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/792339/posts?page=51,5](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/792339/posts?page=51,5) WSJ’s views on taxes are non-neutral and well known, but no one really disputes the trend toward many low-income people paying no effective tax at all. How can additional “tax benefits” be paid to those who are effectively outside the tax system? Now if, **Saxman,** you really mean that additional income redistribution to these non-taxpayers (i.e., the 26% of all tax filers who end up paying nothing – the “poor,” if you will) is in order, then say so. But just as Costco can’t really do much in terms of special sales prices or coupons for people who don’t shop at its stores, the IRS can’t be the mechanism for affirmatively enriching people who are marginally or not at all within its clutches. ---
**Author:** ![g8rguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7cd45c/32.png) [@g8rguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/g8rguy)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346/7 "2003-05-29T20:22:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Saxman \* > **Why do Republicans hate the poor so much?** Perhaps you’d get a more useful answer if you asked a more useful question. That is, before one can address “why do Republicans hate the poor,” one must first demonstrate that Republicans _do_, in fact, hate the poor. When come back, bring argument. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346/8 "2003-05-29T20:31:21Z")
Note clarification; mea culpa. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Huerta88 \* > \*\*Until you’ve shown that the omission of one benefit (a tax credit, which implicitly is based upon meaningful tax debits, i.e., some meaningful contribution to the tax rolls), vis a vis a group who does receive two additional benefits not necessarily available to all the middle-class or “rich” (i.e., the EITC and low to no federal tax burden, as well as perhaps drawing on certain entitlement programs), _equates with disproportionately taxing the “poor” [ed.'s correction]_, I don’t think you’ve demonstrated what you think you’ve demonstrated. \*\* ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346/9 "2003-05-29T20:42:49Z")
> [@](#): > > Warren Buffet renewed his criticism of the dividend tax cut laid out by the senate calling the proposal ‘voodoo Economics’ that uses Enron style accounting. Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz said that although Capitol Hill is buying Mr. Bush’ $350bln package, the third since Mr. Bush came to office it will do more harm than good. He said that the dividend tax will only help the rich and the rising fiscal deficit will push up interest rates making life tougher for companies and ordinary citizens. The dividend tax rollback threatens to act as an investment disincentive for companies. Source: [http://www.fxstreet.com/nou/content/3232/content.asp?menu=forecasts&dia=2552003](http://www.fxstreet.com/nou/content/3232/content.asp?menu=forecasts&dia=2552003) > [@](#): > > Let me, as a member of that non-endangered species, give you an example of how the scales are currently balanced. The taxes I pay to the federal government, including the payroll tax that is paid for me by my employer, Berkshire Hathaway, are roughly the same proportion of my income – about 30 percent – as that paid by the receptionist in our office. My case is not atypical – my earnings, like those of many rich people, are a mix of capital gains and ordinary income – nor is it affected by tax shelters (I’ve never used any). **As it works out, I pay a somewhat higher rate for my combination of salary, investment and capital gain income than our receptionist does. But she pays a far higher portion of her income in payroll taxes than I do.** > > Now the Senate says that dividends should be tax-free to recipients. Suppose this measure goes through and the directors of Berkshire Hathaway (which does not now pay a dividend) therefore decide to pay $1 billion in dividends next year. Owning 31 percent of Berkshire, I would receive $310 million in additional income, owe not another dime in federal tax, and see my tax rate plunge to 3 percent. > > And our receptionist? She’d still be paying about 30 percent, which means she would be contributing about 10 times the proportion of her income that I would to such government pursuits as fighting terrorism, waging wars and supporting the elderly. Let me repeat the point: **Her overall federal tax rate would be 10 times what my rate would be.** > > Proponents of cutting tax rates on dividends argue that the move will stimulate the economy. A large amount of stimulus, of course, should already be on the way from the huge and growing deficit the government is now running. I have no strong views on whether more action on this front is warranted. But if it is, don’t cut the taxes of people with huge portfolios of stocks held directly. (Small investors owning stock held through 401(k)s are already tax-favored.) Instead, give reductions to those who both need and will spend the money gained. Enact a Social Security tax “holiday” or give a flat-sum rebate to people with low incomes. **Putting $1,000 in the pockets of 310,000 families with urgent needs is going to provide far more stimulus to the economy than putting the same $310 million in my pockets.** Source: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13113-2003May19.html?referrer=ema\ilarticle](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13113-2003May19.html?referrer=ema%3Cbr%20/%3Eilarticle) ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346/10 "2003-05-29T21:09:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Huerta88 \* > Others have demonstrated/can demonstrate that the tax system of the U.S. has over the past years moved more and more toward one in which the “very rich” pay a larger proportion of all federal revenues, and the “very poor” pay a minute share. This, my friend, is a very deceiving claim. First of all, you talk about “all federal revenues” and yet the arguments I see in WSJ and elsewhere talk only about federal income tax revenues. You have conveniently ignored all of the payroll tax revenues, a significant portion of federal revenues that are paid by everyone. And, these taxes are regressive in that they only apply to earned income and most of it (all but the Medicare piece) cuts out beyond some point (around $90,000, I believe). [This, by the way, leaves out discussions of the effects of state and local taxes, which are almost always levied in a regressive manner.] Second, even if you restrict the discussion to the federal **income** tax (for no good reason that I can see), if you look at the actual statistics on the share of federal income tax that the richest 1% pay and the share of the total AGI (adjusted gross income) they earned, you find that the reason why the share of the income tax paid has about doubled over the past 20-odd years has nothing to do with the tax system becoming more progressive and has everything to do with the explosion in inequality in income. In particular, in that same time period where their share of the federal income tax has doubled, their share of the AGI has gone up by a factor of 2.5. [At the very bottom end, unlike the very top end, the federal income tax has become somewhat more progressive because of expansion of the earned income tax credit.] ---
**Author:** ![Fang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/96bed5/32.png) [@Fang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fang)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346/11 "2003-05-29T21:35:28Z")
Have you stopped beating your wife yet? ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346/12 "2003-05-29T21:47:17Z")
Why do Democrats want to kill babies? ---
**Author:** ![ElJeffe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@ElJeffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElJeffe)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346/13 "2003-05-29T21:48:40Z")
Blah blah blah Republicans are evil, soulless, unenlightened primates who hate the poor and blacks and women and kick puppies and yadda yadda yadda. The fact that this isn’t The Pit prevents me from saying too much, but Saxman, why don’t you ask yourself this: Isn’t it at least _theoretically possible_ that Republicans don’t hate any one group, they just have a different set of opinions on what is best for the country (and the economy) as a whole? That perhaps we believe that, given the choice between giving a few poor people a few hundred dollars, and giving one not-so-poor person a couple thousand, the latter is the one that will help the economy more, thus ultimately benefitting every, poor included? Now, I’m not asking you to agree with that assessment - you’re free to think it’s the stupidest idea on the planet, if you so desire. But are you really so narrow-minded as to be incapable of at least conceding it as a possibility that us Republicans simply disagree with you? Honestly, for a group that prides itself on tolerance, understanding and diversity, liberals seem to come up with a whole lotta “Why are Republicans so evil/stupid/racist?” threads around here. Jeff ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346/14 "2003-05-29T21:50:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Huerta88 \* > [http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/792339/posts?page=51,5](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/792339/posts?page=51,5) You know, I am really happy you linked to this because it gives me a chance to demonstrate to you and others how the WSJ editorial page staff lies and deceives with statistics! WSJ says: > [@](#): > > Even the barest of glances at tax data reveal a system that is steeply progressive. Tax revenue has been increasingly squeezed out of top earners. According to the most recent data, from 1999, the richest – with income above half a million dollars – constituted 0.5% of taxpayers but accounted for 28% of total tax revenue. Simply put, a tiny group of people (553,380) were responsible for more than one-quarter of the income tax take of $877 billion. > > Well, maybe you’re saying – so what? They can afford it. Then take a look at those who aren’t Richie Rich. The most recent data from the IRS, in 2000, show that the top 5% coughed up more than half of total tax revenue. Specifically, we are talking about folks with adjusted gross incomes of $128,336 and higher being responsible for 56% of the tax take. Eyebrows raised? There’s more. The top 50% of taxpayers accounted for almost all income tax revenue – 96% of the total take. Note how they imply in the first sentence that they are going to show that the system [by which they conveniently mean only the **federal income** tax system] is “steeply progressive”. However, the statistics that they then cite prove nothing of the sort. To show it to be steeply progressive, you have to show that it takes a much larger bite, percentagewise, out of high income earners than lower income earners. But, their numbers can’t tell you that because they have only told you the share of federal income taxes paid by a certain group of people (such as the top 10%) without telling you the share of total income earned by this group! For example, the fact that the top 10% pay 56% of the federal income taxes does not necessarily mean that the system is steeply progressive. (If they earned 70% of the income, then that would show that the system was actually somewhat regressive. In reality, one can look up the statistics [here](http://www.taxfoundation.org/prtopincometable.html) (which is, by the way, a right of center organization) and find that the top 10% earn 35% of the income (as measured by the AGI…adjusted gross income). So, the system is somewhat progressive but not as steeply progressive as they want you to believe. And, certainly the data that they have presented is insufficient to tell you anything about progressivity.) WSJ goes on to say: > [@](#): > > These numbers are more arresting when compared with the situation 14 years earlier. In 1986, the top 1% paid 26% of revenue, the top 5% was responsible for 42% and the top half contributed 93%. And what about the bottom half of taxpayers? They accounted for 7% of the total in 1986 but only 4% in 2000. As I noted before, the implication here is that the progressivity of the tax system has been increasing. But, the reality (at the top, at any rate) is that these changes are just a symptom of a larger disease: the incredible increase in inequality of income over the past 15 or 20 years. So, yes, the top 10% have gone from paying 42% to 56% of the federal income tax since 1986 but their share of the income (AGI) has gone from 24% to 35%; in fractional terms, their increase in income share has slightly outpaced their increase in federal income tax share. So, what you have here is a case where the WSJ has left the implication that the tax system is growing steadily more progressive when, in fact, there has been some increase in progressivity at the bottom but no increase at the top. Rather, the increasing federal income tax burden on the rich is due to their increasing income share! This, of course, makes it seem rather perverse to be advocating making the tax system less progressive. It is akin to saying “We have to decrease taxes on the rich lest they end up paying too much of the income tax due to the fact that they have an ever larger share of the income.” In other words, the solution to exploding inequality is to decrease income taxes on the rich! Only the WSJ editorial page (and the current Administration and Republican Congress) could come up with such perverse ideas! ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346/15 "2003-05-29T21:56:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jshore \* > **Second, even if you restrict the discussion to the federal income tax (for no good reason that I can see),** One reason for doing so is that **Saxman** chose to levy his charge of unfairness specifically in the context of the federal income tax system, and not (say) “overall contributions to and benefits received from government”). He’s complaining that the poor didn’t get one bottom-line IRS tax benefit available to some others (while they did get other bottom line benefits not available to those others). Another is that the medicare and social security and other taxes that you mention corellate (at least theoretically; let’s see how long they survive) to insurance/pension deposits that each payor will eventually draw out (in greater or lesser degree). And consider two earners – one works for the minimum number of quarters over the last ten years before retirement, at a $10,000 salary level; one works every quarter for forty years at a $90,000 level. I’m pretty sure the latter guy won’t get a monthly benefit that is 36 times higher than the former guy, even though that’s the proportion of their incomes (and the tax contribution each has made, assuming a flat payroll tax rate). (In fact, modeling this on the SSA webpage for someone retiring this year, and ignoring the fact that the payroll “cutoff” and rates have likely fluctuated over time, the “rich” guy will qualify for a max. monthly S.S. check of $1714, or just over six (not 36) times the “poor” guy’s check of $256)). So I’m not sure of your basis for flatly declaring the payroll taxes “regressive.” See [http://www.ssa.gov/retire2/AnypiaApplet.html](http://www.ssa.gov/retire2/AnypiaApplet.html). > [@](#): > > \*\* if you look at the actual statistics on the share of federal income tax that the richest 1% pay and the share of the total AGI (adjusted gross income) they earned, you find that the reason why the share of the income tax paid has about doubled over the past 20-odd years has nothing to do with the tax system becoming more progressive and has everything to do with the explosion in inequality in income. \*\* So we **are** talking about redistribution of income via the tax code. Fine. But say so. > [@](#): > > **In particular, in that same time period where their share of the federal income tax has doubled, their share of the AGI has gone up by a factor of 2.5.** And . . .??? This doesn’t necessarily demonstrate that the “poor” have been hurt by the rich doing better. Assuming that everyone (rich and poor) earns their income (big assumption, at both levels, I know), demonstrating that one of them has seen his income go substantially up doesn’t mean that, say, he’s taking more out of the government in the form of services, nor does it mean that the “poor” guy (whose “take” from the government has not necessarily gone down, proportionally) has had food taken off his table – unless you espouse a Proudhon/Marxian theory that all property is a form of theft, there can be no winners without losers, etc. Which is fine, but is not the basis on which the U.S. Tax Code has ever been enacted. A different way of putting this is, how are you so certain that you know the “right” amount that the “rich” and “poor” ought to pay in order to reduce “income inequality?” Also, in a country in which very few “poor” people are suffering from clinical malnutrition, and many of the “poor” (i.e., those on the low end of the “income inequality” curve) have cable television and cellphones and wear the same clothes as the “middle class” or “rich,” there is an argument that “income inequality,” standing alone, should not/need not drive fiscal or tax policy to the extent that right reason/morality would have compelled a similarly-proportional “inequality” to be eliminated when the difference between rich and poor was between affluence and instant starvation, not affluence and . . . living in diminished circumstances. A thought for a different thread, perhaps, but a flip side of “the poor you shall always have with you.” ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346/16 "2003-05-29T21:57:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by 5 time champ \* > \*\*Umm- because poor people don’t make big donations to the Republicans. :dubious: \*\* Umm-because poor people don’t pay taxes. Federal Old Age Survivor’s Disability Insurance tax is a fancy word for Social Security. Earned Income Tax Credit is a fancy word for welfare. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346/17 "2003-05-29T21:57:53Z")
By the way, I do agree with the conservatives in this thread that the polices do not show that “the Republicans hate the poor” (any more than opposing the war in Iraq shows that one loves Saddam Hussein). The question is not one of who they hate and who they like but who their policies benefit and who they hurt. By putting it in terms of hating the poor, **Saxman** , you are unfortunately creating a nice strawman for the conservatives here to pounce on so that they can conveniently ignore the broader policy issues. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346/18 "2003-05-29T22:02:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Magiver \* > Earned Income Tax Credit is a fancy word for welfare. Only if you define a rebate on S.S. and medicare taxes paid as “welfare” which is a somewhat problematic definition. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346/19 "2003-05-29T22:06:55Z")
And, as several have noted/implied, macro- or micro- economic discussions probably unduly the OP, which was based on an (intentionally, I suppose) inflammatory premise having little to do with realistic analysis of why various political constituencies might choose among a multitude of possible economic/tax schemes. The libertarians and other foes of the tax code as currently constituted would point to the inflammatory charges and countercharges as support for the premise that govt. should not constitute itself as the dispenser of economic boons or burdens, or anointer of “winners” and “losers” and “good guys” and “bad guys” in the marketplace. Once the govt. sets up a zero sum game (as between rich and poor), of course there will be gaming. The rich can/will use their money to influence the allocation. The poor can/will use their greater numbers and one-man/one-vote rules. The OP, as phrased, seems to me proof of the “The Tax Code Is An Invitation To Class Warfare” school of thought. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346/20 "2003-05-29T22:08:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Huerta88 \* > \*\*And, as several have noted/implied, macro- or micro- economic discussions probably unduly _dignify [ed.]_ the OP . . . \*\* [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-republicans-hate-the-poor/178346.md?page=2)