One of the apparently more curious features of recent elections in this country has been what might be called the economic masochism of voters.
We're often told that the poor typically vote for Republicans, against their own financial self-interest, who proceed to give them the monetary shaft -- despite the fact that electing Democrats would be fiscally preferable for them. How could these people be so stupid? Or so the logic goes.
Now the same rationale is being invoked to question the motivations of the wealthy during this election cycle. President-elect Barack Obama was crystal clear throughout his campaign that, while he planned to give the nation an overall tax cut, he expected those earning more than $250,000 per year to pay more than they had been paying under the Bush administration.
Yet it turns out that those earning more than $200,000 per year voted for Obama by a 52-46 margin while those earning between $100,000 and $200,000 voted for him by a much smaller margin. We may have been willing to believe that the poor were foolish enough to pick their own pockets, but surely not the rich, too?
This is a bizarre interpretation of the motives of voters not only because it insults them, but because it ignores other, historically dominant explanations for their behavior.
When Democrats and liberals were decrying the votes of the country's least wealthy in 2004, they were making a huge mistake.
Not because they were scrutinizing the behavior of the electorate in an inappropriate way -- asking questions about the logic of why people vote is not necessarily wrongheaded -- but because they were reducing the motivations of the American citizen to the purely economic. It may very well be "the economy, stupid" but people don't like being called economically stupid.
We make simplifying assumptions about the world all the time, and the economists' assumption that we all act in our rational self-interest is far from a bad one most of the time. People clearly do care about their pocketbooks; the question is whether that is all they care about.
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If I was an attorney I would stand up and say, "OBJECTION, IRRELEVANT!" You obviously don't know the MAJOR difference between republicans and democrats. You see one of them starts with a "d" and the other one starts with an "r". Now you know the major difference between the two parties. The majority of both parties support: creating inflation (which is a tax), bailouts of businesses, increasing the federal debt by the trillion (that money has to be paid back with interest), and just good ole fashioned tax increases. Lets talk about business bailouts for a moment. Even if it is a government loan, the government has no money to loan so the government has to borrow it to give to these businesses. So they pay interest on that loan. If these businesses were solid investments they would be able to get their own loans. This indicates that they are NOT good investments and the governemnt is likely to lose money on its loan to the business. Even if we assume a "best case" where the loan is repayed in full, what do you think happens with that money? The taxpayers won't see a penny of it, the government will just spend it on something else.
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I have to take issue with your entire premise. I have never been told that the poor vote Republican, and I was unable to find a single exit poll that reflects this notion, going back as far as the GHW Bush election. A vast majority of those making under $30k a year have voted Democrat, at a rate as high as 2 to 1 in recent years. As for high earners voting Democrat, perhaps part of the reason is because those with money to spare are more inclined to place a higher emphasis on issues other than personal finance; after all, they can afford to.
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Actually, the poor by and large tend to vote for Democrats since it is that party which tends to emphasize welfare and wealth redistribution which directly benefits that class of people. The pull of the Republican party is towards those who would "rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor," which frequently (but not always) includes most middle class Americans. Jason I think hits the nail on the head with the wealthy class - generally, they have the resources to avoid paying much of the tax burden with which they are charged, and frequently appeal to the notion of 'CSR' as a means of gaining still more business. They can claim to have supported candidates with particular popular interests in this manner and garner still more public support for their products. This notion of voters voting 'against their best interests' is something on which the Democratic party has harped in recent years - but it presumes (with haughty arrogance) that it is politicians, and not individuals, who know where a given citizen's best interests lie. For many, economic interests are secondary or ternary to other social issues - and there's nothing wrong with that. And that's why Obama had such a disconnect with the public when he made his comment about small-town citizens "clinging to their guns and religion," as though such things were objectively less important than anything else. That's a pretty arrogant attitude to take.
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This editorial board is quite possibly the worst group of writers to ever grace the CT. Not necessarily because of their writing skills, but because of the ignorance they show time and time again. We are not often told the poor vote Republican!!! An elementary schooler could tell you the poor typically vote Democratic, not always, but usually they do. Next you will be telling us how those democrats really love their guns and most Republicans support abortion.
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No, the poor don't vote Republican. Only the uninformed and stupid vote Republican. People were more informed this election, so a Democrat won. And Jason and Kyle are lovers. The end.
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Actually, I'd contend that with the majority of advertisements being negative in nature, and given that the stump speeches given by both candidates were more vacuous and meaningless than speeches at the Miss Universe pageant, I'd contend that people were generally less well informed during this election cycle than in any previous cycle. And for the record, I don't even know who Jason is. But if it makes you feel good about yourself to lob nonsensical quips in an otherwise reasonable discussion forum, go ahead.
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Future Member, I think your kind of ignorance and bias would put you as the front runner for any editorial job on the CT.
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Miss Universe ran for Vice-President. By the same token, Biden's teeth are too white proving he is part of the commie conspiracy to flouridate our water without our knowledge. Ignorant is, as ignorant does, Jonny. All part of the dumbing down of the last 8 years. Thankfully the carnival's over because I was about to hurl my funnel cake.
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Maybe you thought she would be a qualified Miss Universe - but that doesn't make it so. Unless you are a believer that all knowledge spills forth from the font of government (see: the Chinese information/propaganda machine), the 'dumbing down of the last 8 years' is wholly self-inflicted, if it can even be proven to exist. Let's have a real discussion, OK?
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