Why do rich people support the Democrats? It’s kind of a silly question…people support the party that they think best aligns with their personal beliefs, or because of vertical issues that are important to them. Even if it were true that the Dems are some how best for the ‘middle class’ economically (something I think would depend on how you measured ‘best’ and ‘middle class’), there are plenty of vertical issues that would lead people of one ‘class’ or the other to vote against their supposed economic issues. Like abortion, gun control, gay rights, saving spotted owls…any number of issues that become the focus of someones decision to vote one party or the other because of perceived sympathy of said party with whatever pet issue is the focus.
For the record, for me personally, what **xtisme **said. I’m a civil rights voter. It’s what I care about. I pay my taxes, and I don’t miss them, and that’s been the case for twenty years, through R and D administrations. That refund at the end of the year is nice, but I don’t schedule my purchasing around it, and I’ve donated my GW “rebate” each year to political causes that I believe in.
I’m going to get flamed for this, but dare I suggest that another domestic terrorist attack might have been preferable to hundreds of billions spent in Iraq, and the steadily increasing distrust toward us on the part of virtually every other developed industrial nation. Our default values have become so perverted that we would rather accept the fact that forty million of us don’t have health insurance, and that God knows how many more are under-insured, and that access to health care for still further millions of us can is tied to our jobs. In the private marketplace, health insurance is best available to those who need it the least, because to do otherwise would bring us closer to the mamby-pamby, cradle-to-grave societal values of, say, France or Canada.
Did anyone catch McCain’s mention, the other night, of “gold plated” health plans that pay for transplants? What if you need a damn kidney but only have one of those cheap, Wal-Mart style plans? :rolleyes:
Yes, I’m bitter, after ten months of paying COBRA premiums, and thousands on prescriptions and other treatments for the two of us. After ten months of this, preference of the “spirit of rugged individualism” over providing access to health care and decent public transit makes me want to break something.
Right. So you back McCain, who wants to stay in Iraq “until the job is done”? And you think that’s not going to cost anything?
As if. Our position in Iraq is like that of the best heavyweight champion in the ring, when in the other corner are 100 seven-year-old karate students. You can never beat them, and the “job” will never be done.
One problem with saying that group X did better under a Democratic or Republican administration is that the effects of an administration’s policies, for good or ill, may not become apparent for quite some time. One administration may look good, but on closer examination, handed off a brittle economy with a nasty bubble that will soon pop. Another administration may have suffered through a recession, but laid a solid foundation for future growth and prosperity.
Then there are the external factors that can overwhelm attempts to set economic policy. What would we think of FDR if the economy hadn’t been revived by the production demands of World War II?
So after eight years of more fiscally responsible spending under Clinton, and eight years of catastrophically reckless spending under Bush (most of it with a split or Republican-controlled Congress), the die-hard right-wing still clings to their article of faith that Democrats spend more irresponsibly than Republicans.
This simply doesn’t wash any more. At present, like it or not, the Democrats are the closest thing we’ve got to “the party of good government”, while the Republicans are the irresponsible buccaneers who run up huge bills for future generations to pay. Republicans may at some point regain their reputation for fiscal responsibility, but for now, it’s “spending like Republicans” that’s the insult. “Tax and spend” is a hell of a lot more fiscally responsible than “borrow and spend, spend, spend some more”.
Nonsense. The housing market started its slide well before the 2006 elections, and unemployment had hit 6% in 2003. Furthermore, much of what brought the current financial crisis on us was reckless market deregulation, not fair-housing laws of thirty years back.
Actually, Plan B’s posts excellently illustrate part of the answer to the OP’s question. Many middle class Republicans still support the GOP because they’ve become wedded to a certain set of myths about Republicans and Democrats, which they hold on to in defiance of factual evidence. It’s an article of faith for them that Republicans are by nature more fiscally responsible than Democrats, and that middle-class people are more prosperous under Republican administrations than under Democratic ones. This article of faith is impervious to facts and evidence; any facts that seem to contradict it are explained away as being due to some other factor that must be the Democrats’ fault.
Until Republicans like Plan B learn to look at their party rationally and see where the current reality diverges from their image of it, they will be stuck with this irrational belief that voting Republican is actually in their own best interests. For them, party affiliation isn’t really a choice, it’s more like a religion. It’s about what they believe, not about informed and rational self-interest.
For one thing, I didn’t claim that the idea that Democrats might raise taxes is an illusion. I claimed that the idea that Democrats are by nature more fiscally irresponsible than Republicans is an illusion. Spending money and raising taxes to pay for it is not a more irresponsible approach than spending money and raising deficit spending to pay for it.
For another thing, you apparently live in Maryland, which has a Democratic-dominated state government. For how much of your tax-paying history have Republicans been in charge of your state legislature? It’s easy for a minority party to blame the majority party for tax increases, but if they were in power themselves they might not find it so easy to get by without them.
Every single quintile has seen its wealth grow. This sentence is puzzling to me, as is the whole notion of wealth redistribution, or at least the arguments for it that I’ve seen tossed about as if they were axiomatic.
Are you actually suggesting that the more-wealthy are somehow “stealing” income from the less-wealthy? If it’s not income specifically, how exactly has the wealth from the poor and the middle class been redistributed to the wealthy? Is there just some “fair” piece of the pie everyone is entitled to, and for anything short of those percentages, we can safely assume that some injustice has occurred? Some injustice that requires correction presumably? Or do you mean something else?
Your cite calls into question the precision of the numbers you quoted, by the way.
In response to some of the other points in the thread: Whomever is elected, nothing will change in terms of who offsets the largest percentage of the tax burden. It was, is, and will continue to be the wealthy. All the tax refund nonsense just moves some decimal places around a bit. Obama wants a tax rebate plan that will provide “lower taxes for 95% of Americans.” I have news for him: 40% or so of Americans don’t pay Federal income tax. The Republican tax rebates apportions the $$$, crazily, to those who actually paid it. The Obama plan is certainly wealth redistribution; it’s in the form of welfare. Let’s call it what it is.
Capital gains tax reductions under both Clinton and Bush resulted in more tax revenue. Nice, eh? A win-win. Not to Obama. Reducing it for some half-assed, pandering notion of “fairness” is idiocy, an idiocy currently embraced only by the Obama camp. And lastly, does the OP believe that stock ownership in the U.S. is the province of the rich? That the middle class does not have an ENORMOUS ownership stake in stocks (and by extension how those firms do in the economy)? Who exactly do we believe benefited by the “record-setting” Exxon profits as far as stock ownership goes, as an example? Are they all wealthy guys in penthouses, lighting their Cuban cigars with hundred-dollar bills? Or are there MILLIONS of middle class people with ownership interests in these firms, by way of their 401(k)s and pensions and mutual funds? If you’re looking to find someone who votes against his interests, look no further than the dope who rails against Wall Street–that their profits are obscene–when 80% of his pension and 401(k) is in Blue Chip equity funds. I know lots of these guys.
By the way, I’m not suggesting the Pubbies have been true to their own principles, or that there isn’t idiocy on both sides of the aisle. I’m responding specifically to the question posed by the OP. These threads are amusing, frankly. Such is the echo chamber that is our beloved message board. Certain notions are simply inconceivable apparently.
“Tax and spend” sure sounds evil, but it’s nowhere near as destructive as “shake the invisible money tree and spend, spend, spend”, which seems to be the economic policy of the current Republican mainstream. People want to string Obama up with piano wire for wanting to tax the rich, but where the hell else is the money going to come from? China? Yeah, that’d really kick-start our economy, wouldn’t it? :rolleyes:
Here’s the reality: we’re in a budget crisis. We are the richest nation in the world. We have more billionaires than any other country in the world and, AIUI, most developed nations combined. The rich have the money to solve this problem. I wish we didn’t have the problem in the first place, but we do, and we’ve got to deal with it. One of the ways in which we can start to deal with it is to stop electing Republicans, who have, as a whole, proven a complete inability to handle a national budget.
I don’t see much difference between those people and the far more common example of people (with money to spare) who pull every trick in the book to keep from paying their fair share. I know a number of people of substantial means and they all seem to be experts at getting out of paying taxes. By and large, these people have no moral issue with that, even though the very system that allowed them to be so successful depends on tax income to work. It’s enough to make much of the lower class–who often work like dogs and have very little to show for it–wonder if the entire socioeconomic elite in this country is morally bankrupt. I wouldn’t go that far, but I have before and it’s easy to see the appeal of that viewpoint.
Because they believe that they owe something to the less fortunate? I doubt many rich Democrats dream of one day living off of 40s and SPAM on welfare.
I agree. It’s completely ludicrous for the GOP to jump all over Obama’s “share the wealth” statement after this massive bailout.
Part of the problem is our politicians would rather have slogans that don’t reflect reality rather than speak openly and honestly with the American people. The media, which should be helping us out by presenting rationally factual discourse also fails in their role as they scramble for ratings with inflammatory National Enquirer style BS.
Then again, the public has to be willing to hear open honest dialog and we had to let things get this bad before we saw the need for that. Carter tried it and left office with ratings almost as low as GWs.
What I’m saying is the basic conservative principle of work hard, be responsible for yourself, pay your own way, keep what you worked hard to earn, appeals to lots of average, middle class Americans as well it should. When the Democrats start talking about how they’re going to fix everything with with a program for this or that or turns off a lot of people that hear that as higher taxes going to help someone else and be mismanaged by some bureaucracy. The GOP has painted that picture and it’s works.
I’ve voting Obama because I think he will give intelligent more honest communication. I also think he understands that social programs that help provide a safety net also need to require something from those receiving the help.
true dat. I really enjoyed a thread we had recently, "I’m a conservative but,… or something. It revealed that people are diverse and don’t fit into political molds. We have to decide which issues are have the higher priority to us personally.
I grew up with middle class values in east Tennessee. It is very much a “earn your own way” mentality. Being on the “Government dole” was something to be shamed and scorned. People would gladly help those that helped themselves, but those that sat on the front porch waiting for the next check to roll in they had no use for.
So even though by and large, these people are still not what one would consider wealthy, all this talk of redistribution of wealth (socialism) goes against their core beliefs. When you combine that with gun control and late term abortion you end up with a group that despite the inept candidate, they’ll still vote republican.
I have a friend who owns his own one man business. He made about $150,000 last year. His office is in his homes and I’m sure he takes all the deductions he is legally entitled to, and he still paid $45,000 in taxes. That’s thirty percent of the money he earned. Granted he lives well, has a beautiful home and a 2nd hand Lexus.
A friend of his who earned $50,000 paid around $5,000. That’s 10% I can understand my friend wondering why his percentage is so much higher even though when the math is done , he’s still a lot better off than his friend.
I agree there is cooperate greed where profit trumps all and as long as the laws can be manipulated in their favor the long range effect on society doesn’t come into play. I don’t think that necessarily applies to locally owned smaller businesses.
Unfortunately the Dems have never been very good at combating this rhetoric and I’m not sure why. Why can’t they say, we want to help people that need a hand up, while encouraging personal responsibility and providing opportunities for people to work. Obama is doing much better than previous candidates when he talks working class.
I believe that Democratic policies would hurt the company I work for, and significantly increase the odds that I might be laid off, or my company might go bankrupt.
I would rather be employed in an area with low wages, than unemployed in an area with high wages.
I would rather be employed in an area with bad unemployment benefits, than unemployed in an area with good unemployment benefits.
I’ve never really understood the “tax and spend” meme - to me, at least, tax and spend seems far preferable to “spend and don’t tax.”
In recent decades, Republicans stand for something far different from fiscal conservatism or small government as I understand it.
It is also difficult to speak generally of taces, because all too often reductions in federal spending and taxes results in a increased tax burden at the state and local level.
Plan B - I’d like a cite for the trillion dollar cost of 9/11.
If you are tossing in DHS and the Iraq war, well, IMO those were entirely avoidable and unnecessary costs.
mbh what dem policies exactly do you fear would hurt your employer?
Personally, I’m doing pretty well. It just confuses me when I see so many friends and acquaintances who seem to be working their butts off and not getting too terribly much for it, who say that they fear they will fair poorly economically under a Dem president/Congress. It seems to me that they aren’t doing too terribly great as it is, and I’m uncertain why they fear they would do so much worse under the Dems.
Heck, as imprecise as economics policy is, I prefer it when someone expresses an ideological basis for their vote.
Arguing that the Republicans haven’t failed to maintain US security since the last time they failed to maintain US security is not a ringing endorsement. A rapist that hasn’t raped anyone since the last time he raped someone is not reformed.
As for your properties not being attacked, you’re just wrong. The US embassy in Yemen was attacked recently, as five seconds with a search engine will show. And there’s no shortage of US property being attacked in Iraq on nearly a daily basis. I do not doubt more digging will reveal more attacks.
No, you aren’t safe. You just haven’t been attacked again yet. I’m sure you will be, though, because the US’s recent behaviour is not conducive to making people not hate it.