The shorter version of this post: the GOP can appease a bunch of different constituencies in different ways. They appease by throwing at least part of their platform and some of their constituency under the bus. The one group that is not being seriously discussed for under-the-bus status are the elites of the party on the issue of taxes. It seems that if everything is on the table except for specific and direct help for the white working class.
John Boehner isn’t in an easy position. The loss the other day throws several key issues on his plate. He has to balance all of them in order to retain his tenure as House Speaker and leader of the Republican party. So he’s naturally going to play hardball on tax rates in order to have at least some leverage on that issue and others.
“Raising tax rates is unacceptable,” Boehner, R-Ohio, said in his first broadcast interview since the election Tuesday.
“Frankly, it couldn’t even pass the House. I’m not sure it could pass the Senate.”
What is strange here though is that Boehner is maintaining conservative principles on tax rates but capitulating on amnesty. Amnesty may end up being the best option available for the GOP, but he’s basically giving it up right off the bat instead of at least trying to pretend that he has power to wield.
In all the discussions over what changes the GOP should make to appeal to voters in the future and what they could have done differently, every sort of appeasement has been offered. But the one thing that has not been put on the table and which could very well have appealed to working class whites are slight tax increases on the rich. I’m as fiscally conservative as anyone, but I have to recognize that the GOP is not operating from a position of strength here. And a marginal tax rate of 35% is not much different than a marginal tax rate just north of 39%. It still offends my libertarian principles, but that is the nature of taxation in general. Boehner assumes – or hopes – that his base is more concerned with tax rates than with an issue like immigration.
On both of these issues the GOP wants enforcement first. They want to secure the border before proceeding on amnesty or any other semi-amnesty measure. And they want to cut spending before caving in on tax increases. If we’re reading Boehner right, he’s dropping the enforcement of border protection and putting all of his eggs in the deficit cut/spending cut basket.
As per Sean Trende’s piece, it is kind of disheartening, even for a fiscal conservative like myself, that the one group that Boehner and the GOP have not even thought about appeasing are working class folks in the middle of the country. I’m trading my princples here for pragmatic politicking. Those groups do have a natural conservative bent, but they are much less fiscally conservative than they are conservative in other ways. Sell them the idea of slight increases in tax rates for the rich and push things like deductions for married people. I feel defeated in saying that this is what must be done. But everything else has been put on the table; it makes me wonder why the working class is the only group not being discussed as potential recipients of appeasement measures.
For more insight, read Heartiste on this matter.
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The Bush tax cuts are going to expire and the parties will blame each other for that happening. That means everyone’s taxes go up, and the GOP will blame the WH for not agreeing to other cuts to avoid the fiscal cliff of mandatory cuts and having the Bush tax cuts expire. It’s the perfect scenario politically for the Republicans — they don’t sell out on taxes, but get to blame the WH for them due to the pre-agreed fiscalgeddon scenario from a few years ago, but taxes on the rich actually go up, relieving the GOP from the “protecting the rich” albatross, while taxes on everyone else *also* go up, which will be hugely unpopular and be an albatross around the WH’s neck and an issue the GOP can use for the midterms in ’14. Perfect scenario really.
The Repubs should cave on Democratic policies that would piss people off. Cave on gas taxes in order to fight global warming, for example. Allow a raise in gas and electric taxes which would piss people off against the Democrats. Allow more welfare. Welfare reform was a great issue for the Repubs against Clinton. Get people pissed off about welfare recipients again. Force universities to take more minorities which will piss people off about AA and weaken the quality of liberal publicly funded universities. But don’t cave on issues that will create more Democratic voters.
Just to follow up, imagine if on every gas or electric bill you saw listed a “global warming tax.” And when you fill up at the pump, at the price tag there was a display showing the pre and post global warming tax price of gas. Imagine how pissed off people would be at the dems.
And finally, as the price to pay for “allowing” these taxes you demand the abolishion of the department of education. All win.
Appealing to the white working class is racist. An elite would rather loose than be a racist.
The GOP could have run on the platform of 50% tariffs and sending all the immigrants home until the US has full employments again and have won 70% of the white vote. They will never do so because protecting white working class Americans over immigrates is racist.
I honestly have no qualms about raising taxes on wealthier people. But “wealthier” is a vague definition. Some people live lifestyles that are extravagant but don’t actually pull in a high steady wage — Tax them too. Actors & TV personalities, athletes, musicians in addition to the banksters. Tax them all as far as I’m concerned. I would be perfectly happy confiscating a really high percentage (maybe up to 75%) of wealth beyond some arbitrary number (say 1 million). The two problems with this are: Such punitive tax measures would probably encourage wealth to flee the US and I don’t trust the government to spend that money more usefully than the people they’re compensating from.
I haben’t seen anything yet that convinces me the Republican Party is serious about cutting spending. From the ABC News article: “”I would do that if the president was serious about solving our spending problem and trying to secure our entitlement programs,” Boehner said. This is utter hypocrisy. True that the GOP would repeal Obamacare if they could, but otherwise they’re defenders of the current entitlement system, and will fight to keep defense spending from getting hit by the fiscal cliff too. Anyone who thinks you can do that, not raise taxes, and make government financially sustainable, does not derserve a seat at the adults’ table.
Liberals want more government and higher taxes. Libertarians want less programs and lower taxes. But Republicans are the ones who are two-faced about it, acting like we can have both big government and low taxes. They’ll pretend they want to cut spending, with trickery like forcing tax cuts outright and thrn paying for them with sprnding cuts delayed for years (until the next Congress) that they know aren’t going to sctually happen. I’m sick of it. If they think somebody needs to give something up, they should come out and say who it is, and what.
“Tax them all as far as I’m concerned.”
How about shooting them?
They’ll pretend they want to cut spending, with trickery like forcing tax cuts outright and thrn paying for them with sprnding cuts delayed for years (until the next Congress) that they know aren’t going to sctually happen. I’m sick of it. If they think somebody needs to give something up, they should come out and say who it is, and what.
This is why the fiscal cliff compromise was genius for the GOP. Automatic cuts. Robo-cuts. No-one’s “fault”, politically. Just automatically happen. Yes, some of those are what the GOP doesn’t want (military cuts), but you swallow the bitter with the sweet and watch the auto-hatchet swing, swing, swing with a satisfied, cynical smile. I love it.
I hope they let the cuts expire. I’m not buying that people are that on the edge financially that the Bush tax cut expiration is going to put them in financial ruin, They can cut something else, like their kids’ Iphone contracts, which would prob save 1-2k a year, depending on the number of phones and number of kids. Get rid of the $200-$300 month cable bill. I know people on gov’t assistance that have full cable…not sure how that works but people assume that having this stuff is automatic, when you can cut you bills down tremendously by scaling back. No one wants to tell anyone they can’t have any of this stuff though.
Here is an interesting factoid that isn’t getting mentioned much anywhere… and It would be nice for you to blog on it.
Obama beat McCain with young white voters by 10 points… and then Romney beat him by 7 points.
I think this is important to point out for a couple reasons.
1. There are a lot of white conservatives worried that they’re “losing their own children”… The interesting thing as the more they’re “losing the country” the less they’ll be “losing their children” because their children will also be polarized in a racially “diverse” society.
2. There is a lot of peer pressure on the youth, and making the fact that young white Obama voters were a minority within their race may sway some of them in the future.
http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/race/president#exit-polls
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1
Vote by Age and Race
White 18-29 (11%)[same in both polls]
Obama: 54% – MCain: 44%
Obama: 44% – Romney: 51%
3. Also, there are a lot of white cultural elites of all ages who derive some of their “coolness” from youthful trends… but one of the youthful trends apparently is that Obama is losing the white youth vote.
I agree with Brendan: the Robocuts are going to hurt Obama quite a bit. Good strategizing.
That said, the Republicans might try pushing for lower payroll taxes and higher capital gains rates. Malinvestment encouraged by low interest rates (kudos of the Fed) and low tax rates on capital gains (thanks to Reaganomics) are likely to exacerbate the natural boom-bust business cycle, and are deeply unpopular with a broad cross-section of whites.
In fact, they are the reason that most of the people I’ve talked to voted against Romney.
Maybe a national sales tax on everything but unprocessed food would work better than the current income tax system. Hell, it might even encourage people to save again.
What is strange here though is that Boehner is maintaining conservative principles on tax rates but capitulating on amnesty
Are you kidding? Where the fuck have you been for the past 40 years? The Republican party is a big binness lobby and nothing else, they’ve been screwing the rest of their constituents for decades. They’re con men who work for the one-party state and they’ve actually been quite clever at chiseling their voters while selling them out to the establishment, it’ll be quite interesting and amusing to see what they come up with now that the demographic disaster has become obvious to all but the most obtuse. I’m sure they’ll come up with something, most of their constituents (victims) want to be fooled.
I hope the GOP is smart enough to cave on the democrat demands that people will hate.
I don’t think they realize the position they are actually in.
BIG UP soren for that link. Chuck you should blog about it, tweet it, do whatever you can to put that fact out into the ether.
When are idiots going to realize that there are no taxes on the rich? The rich can structure and hide their money in perfectly legal ways and completely avoid the income taxes. Why? Because they take advantage of a tax code that defines what taxable actually is. Guys with 50-100 million fortunes can sock money into unrealized capital gains, or municipal bonds, or any securities out there and pretty much guarantee they pay little to nothing in taxes.
Does anyone remember how the Rolling Stones paid a 1.2% tax on a billion dollars in income? Nuff said.
The income tax talk is a bunch of bait and switch. Rich liberals support increases income taxes because these fall primarily on the upper middle class that does pretty well. These people are a threat and the tax system is designed to destroy them and any other middle class person who wants upward mobility.
Republicans should never budge on taxes.
A better way to tax would be to impose extreme tax rates on luxury goods. Anything SWPL should have a sales tax rate of 100%+. I have no faith that major tax reform is ever going to happen though — The elites don’t want a tax system that forces them to pay substantial amounts in taxes, and the elites run the government.
“A better way to tax would be to impose extreme tax rates on luxury goods. Anything SWPL should have a sales tax rate of 100%+.”
Won’t matter – SWPLs will pay out the ass for “better” products as long as said “better” products confer upon them extra social cache. Want evidence? Go to your nearest Whole Foods.
@youngreact:
In what way is it supposed to “matter”? The only point is to put a big tax burden on people who want to live an extravagant lifestyle. Ideally I’d like to see some sort of dramatic simplification of the tax code as well, but reality is our elites want things complicated so they can squirrel money away.
The income tax talk is a bunch of bait and switch. Rich liberals support increases income taxes because these fall primarily on the upper middle class that does pretty well. These people are a threat and the tax system is designed to destroy them and any other middle class person who wants upward mobility.
Yes, this is the exact coalition, and why we see it: the more wealthy together with the poor against those in the middle — we can call them the “striver” class. The poor hate the striver class because they are “rich people” (in relative terms) who are (1) in their face (i.e., not relatively invisible like the real rich are) and (2) not rich enough to have enough money to be super-generous with the poor because these are strivers, not rich people. The rich hate the striver class because they are the ones who are rising, who are coming to crash the party, and who must be kept outside the gates of the club. So you play with tax policy. Kind of a rich man’s Robin Hood taking stuff from the strivers and giving it to the poorer classes, while your own rich class doesn’t feel much of an impact at all because it is situated to do things with its money and assets to deftly avoid most taxes, and especially the kinds of taxes that are used to redistribute the relatively meager wealth of the striver class. This is the fundamental economic dynamic at play here, and it’s why you see Warren Buffet saying the things he does — he wants to strike out at the striver class, and strike hard.
Republicans should never budge on taxes.
I think they will, but it will be using the auto mechanism that allows them to pass the blame to the WH when everyone’s taxes go up because the WH wasn’t willing to talk turkey on cuts to avoid the tax increases, while the GOP was willing to stand by what was agreed and watch even its own pet programs get the hatchet. It’s a perfect strategy for the GOP, and that was also recognized at the time. All the Dems got from the deal was delaying it until after the election (which is admittedly a very big thing because it helped them keep the WH), but it was recognized at the time that the way this deal works gives a huge amount of leverage to the GOP right now. Huge.
GOP is going to lose all their leverage when the new attorney general focuses the entire FBI on un-electing the republican house