Filibuster CartoonsTitle: Doing favors for the rich (click to view)
Date: September 21, 2010
One of the biggest domestic issues facing the United States these days (a category in which there is no shortage), is the outstanding matter of what to do with President Bush's tax cuts. Mr. Bush, we may recall, was a tax-cut happy sort of guy, and cut income taxes fairly dramatically during his eight years in office, especially for the rich. But now the sunset clause is going to kick in, and if no action is taken, taxes will rise for almost all Americans come January, 2011.
The Democrats have called for the Bush tax cuts to stay — but only for Americans making less than $200,000 a year (ie: over 98% of the population). Anyone making more than that will see their taxes increase back to the pre-Bush levels. For the upper 2%, this will represent a hike of 3 to 4%.
In response, the Republicans have said they will only support legislation that makes permanent
all of the Bush tax cuts, rich and non-rich alike. House leader John Boehner even went so far as to say he'd rather see no tax cuts for anyone than a tax hike on the wealthy (though he later backed down).
It's an odd strategy, this Republican business of defending the interests of the rich. Though we're all comfortable with the stereotype of the GOP as the party of the wealthy cigar-chomping plutocrat, in recent years the uber-rich have actually been steadily ditching the Republicans and migrating to the other side. In the 2008 election, for instance, Obama won 52% of the votes of Americans making over $200,000 a year, and even now, in the midst of this supposed darkest hour of Democratic socialism, the President's approval rating remains much
higher among the country's wealthiest 2% than any other income group.
The reason for this correlation is not that difficult to discern. The stereotypical Ivy League, latte-drinking,
New York Times-reading, urbane metrosexual liberals, whom the Republicans love to hate, are generally much better off than the heartland tractor pull set who make up the idealized GOP base. Wealth has always brought with it certain social expectations and in-group attitudes, and in the 21st Century, those tend to veer to the left of the political spectrum. Middle and lower-class conservatives may look down upon the hedonistic values and culture of the university campus and big city life, but so too do the rich children of privilege and titans of the corporate sector increasingly look down upon the churchy redneckism of Sarah Palin and her ilk. When it comes to social policy in particular, it seems that the wealthy are quite willing to compromise on taxes and regulation so long as it means their politicians will be pushing a progressive agenda on things like gay rights and immigration. Indeed, part of the whole point of being rich is that you
don't need to worry much about money matters any more, and can afford to take a financial hit in the pursuit of philanthropic causes.
With deficits and debt continuing to loom, it seems that a saner Republican strategy would be to support raising taxes on a wealthy elite that increasingly wants less and less to do with them. Such a move would generate billions in revenue to pay down all sorts of outstanding expenses, and would get the nation closer to the fiscal solvency conservatives supposedly desire. Of course, politics is not all about strategy, I realize, and there is an ideological argument to be made that raising the taxes of America's most productive class is simply bad policy, period. But in times of such extreme distress, surely we can all make a sacrifice or two. The rich certainly seem willing to make theirs.
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