TEA Partiers for Tax Increases (on the rich too)
Robert Waldmann
The gap between public opinion and elite opinions about public opinion never ceases to amaze me. The policy elite seems to have decided that Social Security old age pensions have to be cut. The public is adamantly opposed. It is even more striking that a strong majority supports lifting the payroll tax ceiling (66% favor 27% oppose). This is demonstrated by the latest Lake Partners exit poll of 2010 voters (warning pdf from a secondary source). That’s a poll of voters, not adults or registered voters, but the people who just elected a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
The amazing result is that 59% of self identified Republicans support the tax increase and 60% of self identified Tea Partiers support the tax increase.
There it is, 60% of Tea Partiers support a tax increase. Some of the people whose taxes would go up are not rich, but the taxes of rich people will go up. Tea Partiers support higher taxes and a more progressive tax code so long as they are told that the point is to shore up Social Security.
Some political thoughts to offer-up. Obama seems to have been goading conservatives into numerous public pronouncements and plans saying that they want to cut SS benefits, if not privatize (i.e., get rid of) it. It’s not difficult and I don’t think it’s unintended. Politically, he can go with the flow or tidal wave if it appears, or he can pose as the defender-in-chief of fairness. His strongest statements (“not on my watch”) tell us that he has to date been planning to take the latter approach. History, and polls so far, recommend a vigorous defense. If that’s his plan, the smartest political move may be to keep goading, prepare defenses and counterattack plans (with some testing), and be ready to open fire in 2012. Of course, Republican conservatives might catch-on and shut-up to let the issue fade, but sometimes they just can’t help themselves.
Public opinion does not matter to the Republicans (including the tea baggers). They care only for the opinion of the top one percent, the super wealthy, who bought the election for them.
I never fail to marvel at the stupidity of American voters. I am sure that there were poor folk, folk dependent on social security, folk who can’t pay their mortgages, and even unemployed folk among those voting for Republicans. We have an odd sort of class warfare in the US. The super-rich are warring against everyone else 24/7. But the rest of us refuse to fight back. So it’s a one-sided class war. No wonder the super rich have won.
well, at the risk of goading kharris into yet another demonstration of why liberals can’t win an election
i have been trying to point out for years that the unsophisticated republican voter would rather vote for the democrat agenda, if only “we” could stop scaring them to death.
i would also modestly recommend that when you call for tax increases on “the rich,” you call for a modest increase for yourself. to be honest i am not sure how this would play. people seem to be terminally stupid when it comes to tax increases for themselves, but i keep thinking an “we’re all in this together” approach to tax increases “for the duration” of the “deficit emergency” would sell on patriotic grounds. and i suspect the higher taxes would do people more good than they could do for themselves with that one or two percent of “their own money” spending it at walmart.
the point, not well understood by economists, is that under present circumstances, that tax would not be taking money out of the economy, or away from investments, but in fact be putting it in, and making needed investments. we could do it with deficit spending, but it would be better in today’s economy to do it with taxes. there is more money lying idle out there than is typical of past recessions, and the size of the government debt is at least scaring people if not in itself a real problem.
if obama is playing a trick on republicans with his debt commission it’s a damn dangerous trick. they have made cutting social security a credible option. people are a lot easier to fool than they think.
I am amazed at how deep is the denial and misunderstanding of the conservative is the liberal/Dem. Jan still thinks that the super rich are conservative, even after they elected Obama.
pjr thinks that the attack on SS was instigated by Repubs and not the Obama deficit commission.
And Robert is still amazed when conservatives accept solutions to the “entitlement problem” that may include some draconian measures. Measures that they fully understood as needed to make the depth of changes needed to turn the direction of this over spending administration.
I am further amazed at how bad were Dem/liberal policies, now that they have actually been tried. Economic policies, failed. Anti-war policies, abject failures. PC-based policies have lead us toelectronic strip searches and pat downs. Liberal concepts of justice for war criminals, approaching failure, with the most recent example a near acquittal. Liberal concepts of fairness have resulted in the level of class warfare we currently see today. But what really amazes me is the arrogance from the left to think they were better, smarter, and more likely to succeed in helping average Americans. Average Americans are still waiting!
What successes we can find from this administration’s policies are those carried over from, well, Bush.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/19/david-cay-johnston_n_786243.html
David Cay Johnston has the above comments. As you see, his remarks are not flattering to the Billionaire Boys Club and politicians who enable them to rip us off. FYI. Nancy Ortiz
CoRev
i am not sure that the super rich all vote the same way, but i’d bet that the super rich who backed obama did it because he was a conservative.
Looks like the pretty pictures were ignored.
I agree that “the unsophisticated republican voter would rather vote for the democrat agenda, if only ‘we’ could stop scaring them to death.” However, my practical proposal is the opposite of yours. I agree that we shouldn’t just propose tax increases on the rich. I think we should make a combined proposal of tax increases for the rich and tax cuts for everyone else.
I know it’s easy to convince people to support tax cuts for themselves. That’s the point.
I also think this would be better policy than tax increases for the rich or tax increases mostly on the rich but a little on everyone. In this economy, higher aggregate demand is desirable. That means that public spending which would not be disirable in normal times is desirable. It also means that temporary tax cuts for the non rich are desirable.
The problem with deficit spending is that it makes people think they are richer then they are so they consume more and save less. Usually this crowds out investment, because the Fed raises interest rates so GDP is the same with more consumption and less investment. In the current situation more consumption would cause more investment, since shoert term safe interest rates are stuck at effectively zero.
I think it would be good policy to raise taxes on the rich and cut taxes on the non rich. I can explain this pretending that people are rational so the PIH applies unless they are liquidity constrained. In this imaginary world GDP and investment would be higher (now and forever) if we cut taxes on the liquidity constrained and raised taxes on the non-liquidity constrained. The tax cut for the liquidity constrained would cause a temporary increase in their consumption which is good when we are in a liquidity trap. The tax increase for the non liquidity constrained would reduce their consumption by a small amount now and forever. The policy I propose would cause higher consumption now when we want high consumption and lower consumption in the future when we want low consumption. Of course I don’t believe that people have rational expectations, but I really don’t think the argument really requires that assumption — the non rich spend more of the money now and less of the money later. That’s enough.
Sometimes good politics is good policy.
I am amazed at your apparent inability to read plain English. Republicans and Tea Partiers overwhelmingly reject all draconian measures except for one. If you had bothered to click the link, you would have found overwhelming opposition among Republicans or Tea Partiers for any cuts in Social Security benefits.
In your fantasy world Republicans and Tea Partiers agree that we have a big problem so everyone will have to make sacrifices. In the real world the only sacrifice they supported in the poll is higher taxes with no cuts to entitlements at all.
I think you would contribute more to the discussion if you bothered to read before typing.
“the super rich who backed Obama” aren’t all conservative. There are super rich liberals and leftists. I think the super rich extreme leftists are pretty much all heirs, but there are clearly super rich people who aren’t conservatives. I’d say the key issue is that there are super rich people who strongly support higher taxes on super rich people.
I will not entangle this comment thread with the thread on my last post. Must … resist temptation … arg.
Exactly. I guess I should have hot-linked to them. I will update.
Robert wrote these two statements: “
Full data here (warning 21 page pdf)” Note the warning!
and
“I think you would contribute more to the discussion if you bothered to read before typing. “
Which message are we to take away? The warning or his intended human nature snark aimed at just conservatives?
Robert also said this: “That’s a poll of voters, not adults or registered voters, but the people who just elected a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.”
but the poll clearly said
this: “Findings from an Election Eve/Night Survey of 1,200 Likely Voters Nationwide”
So, Robert, before you start commenting about your readers’ reading ability, try looking inward.
BTW, your conclusions are very selective, and biased while the poll was light weight. The pollsters obviously know little about SS or failed to read AB. And, becuse you are an AB contributor, obviously knowing the SS basics discussed here, I was some what amazed at your snarkiness and arrogance. Why do you think the average voter is so ignorant about SS?
SS was not a big issue with voters! I noticed that the poll did not address federal spending as an issue.
Robert, actually one poll of the “SRs” showed 70% of them voted for Obama in 2008.
Exactly, if you are making a point, show your supporting evidence, instead of actually assuming the readers care enough to read your general links to extract the specifics.
Robert wrote these two statements: “Full data here (warning 21 page pdf)” Note the warning!
and
“I think you would contribute more to the discussion if you bothered to read before typing. ”
Which message are we to take away? The warning or his intended human nature snark aimed at just conservatives?
Robert also said this: “That’s a poll of voters, not adults or registered voters, but the people who just elected a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.”
but the poll clearly said
this: “Findings from an Election Eve/Night Survey of 1,200 Likely Voters Nationwide”
So, Robert, before you start commenting about your readers’ reading ability, try looking inward.
BTW, your conclusions are very selective, and biased while the poll was light weight. The pollsters obviously know little about SS or failed to read AB. And, becuse you are an AB contributor, obviously knowing the SS basics discussed here, I was some what amazed at your snarkiness and arrogance. Why do you think the average voter is so ignorant about SS?
SS was not a big issue with voters! I noticed that the poll did not address federal spending as an issue.
And finally, your title is completely misleading for the data actually collected and presented.
Below is a pretty picture of the general understanding from conservatives’ view.
Robert
no way either of us can convince the other. so this is not an argument but an assertion, open to test by any President and Congress with imagination:
not all times are the same. a small increase in taxes even on the non rich would not materially affect their well being, nor their propensity to spend. they would spend less because they would have less, but the government spending their money on better things than plastic toys would by a fairly short chain of cause and effect lead the poor to have more money to spend.
it is “good politics” to cut taxes on the non rich only in the sense that you can win elections… that is elect more people to do dumb things. it is good politics to raise taxes on the non rich as part of a campaign to raise taxes generally… on the rich, which is where the money is… so you can use the money to fund infrastructure, stimulate the economy, and pay down the debt which has grown problematic.
now, here is where kharris thinks i go “ad hominem,” because he doesn’t understand the term: I think that Waldmann is a prisoner of a theory, and an emotional commitment to “the poor”, that makes it hard for him to see that different times call for different remedies. as an exercise for the class, discuss why this may NOT be an “ad hominem” fallacy. though, it may of course be wrong.
Robert
you may well be right for all i know. i was making a claim that obama got support from people with lots of money who knew they could rely on him not to rock their boat. i don’t count hollywood rich as “super rich.”
There’s something indeed to be said for the “we’re all in this together” approach, with some huge assumptions. First, we’d want to draw some lines for this idea in fact if not in rhetoric. It’s one thing to ask a non-rich person making $150K to pay a little more in taxes, it’s another to ask it of someone making $20K; beyond the humanitarian aspect, their spending/savings patterns differ so the economic impacts differ. Second, purely on economic grounds, the increased revenues from the non-rich have to be used to create real jobs and not to reduce the deficit right now. We’ve got about a trillion dollars sitting idle and there’s no sense adding to it while reducing consumption by the non-rich. On the other hand, if the added funds are used to employ people in useful projects, the multiplier could be higher than leaving the money in the hands of the non-rich, as coberly said. Third, it requires leaping a somewhat elevated (Mt. Everest) political hurdle: get Congress to both raise taxes and spend more when they don’t want to do either.
Links are not decorative. They present evidence. To commenting without clicking the links is to waste people’s time.
In this here thang we call the internet, to “show” “supporting evidence” we link to it.
pjr
i agree with that. but raising the SS tax… really money they are going to get back when they need it more… would not hurt even the poor, and it would protect social security … and the poor are really going to need their SS more than they are going to need an extra ten cents per week (the cost of the needed SS raise to a person earning 20k).
once you raise the tax on the poor by raising the SS tax, and the tax on the average to high average worker… who all think they are barely scraping by… you will have the moral capital to raise the tax on the rich by about 3%, which would do the job.
but of course you’d need a real salesman, and FDR is no longer with us.
robert
a hell of a lot better essayist than you or i will ever be once said that [an essay] ought to contain within itself everything needed for its understanding.
relying on links is lazy and an insult to the reader. you can summarize what the link says and save the reader time, as well as make your point clearer without leaving the reader to guess what it was you took out of the cited reference, which may be different from what he takes out of it.
if this were a scholarly journal and we were all “building the truth” together, the linked “evidence” would be useful. but in a blog they are a precious presumption. include them for those who have the time and interest to “investigate the evidence” but don’t rely on them, and certainly don’t expect the rest of us to be as impressed by your “evidence” as you are.
and don’t take me too seriously. just offering a point of view you may not have encountered.
There are two links in the post. The first link leads to a one page summary. One page not 21. That one page reports on the rejection of various possible social security cuts by majorities of Republicans and of tea partiers. That evidence, all available on one page which you would have seen if you had bothered to click the link, contradicts your confidenlty stated intepretation of the poll which you made without reading one single linked page which contained the relevant data.
The title of that one page summary is “Highlights of 2010 Election Voters’ Opinions about Social Security Based on Lake Partners Survey, 10/31-11/2, 2010.” I foolishly assumed that the author of the summary meant voters when he or she typed “voters.”
I admit that the one page contradicts itself as way down near the link to the 21 page pdf “likely voters” is, correctly written, instead of “voters”. Also the title of the 21 page pdf is correct.
I was sloppy. I assumed that “voters” meant voters. I didn’t notice the contradiction within the one page summary or between its title and the title of the 21 page report.
But I don’t write about “the link” in a post which contained two links. I can count to two. I note that one link includes the 21 page warning and the other doesn’t. I would have thought that anyone who read the post could tell that they were links with different URLs and that the first didn’t link to a 21 page document.
I think that now that you have finally looked at the data, you should reconsider your original comment. I don’t ask you to post any further possibly revised thoughts here.
As a courtesy for those who consider clicking links beneath them, I reproduce all of the data to which the first of the two links in the post would take you if you ever deigned to click it.
STRENTHEN SOCIAL SECURITY … [sic] don’t cut it.
Highlights of 2010 Election Voters’ Opinions About Social Security
Based on Lake Research Partners Survey, 10/31-11/2, 2010
Opposition to cutting Social Security benefits in order to reduce the deficit
•
Overall: 82% oppose cuts, 15% support cuts
•
By Party: Democrats (83% to 15%), Independents (78% to 17%), Republicans (82% to 15%),
Tea Party Supporters (74% to 13%)
Opposition to cutting Social Security to make program solvent in the long term
•
Overall: 67% oppose cuts, 24% favor cuts
•
By Party: Democrats (78% to 16%), Independents (66% to 20%), Republicans (58% to 35%),
Tea Party Supporters (51% to 38%)
Opposition to reducing Social Security Benefits for people earning above $60,000 today when they retire
• […]
Robert, thank you for admitting your mistakes. Shouldn’t you rethink your snarkiness re: TPers and/or conservative voters? Your comment: “That’s a poll of voters, not adults or registered voters, but the people who just elected a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.” may actually significantly alter your findings/conclusions.
Robert, instead of reacting, reread my comment. It referred solely to the material you originally wrote in the article. then after I did read your linked materials, I commented upon how badly you had misinterpreted them. So, I did not: “To commenting without clicking the links is to waste people’s time.” comment on that materials therefore did not waste your time. You’ve done that all by yourself.
Now, to cover your mistakes and laziness you are obfuscating those issues by making childish claims.
Robert, instead of reacting, reread my comment. It referred solely to the material you originally wrote in the article. Then after I did read your linked materials, I commented upon how badly you had misinterpreted them. So, I did not: “To commenting without clicking the links is to waste people’s time.” comment on those linked materials therefore did not waste your time. You’ve done that all by yourself.
Now, to cover your mistakes and laziness you are obfuscating those issues by making childish claims.
robert
it’s not my clicking finger. it’s my slow modem. and something in the program that does not return me to the place i left when i want to come back. you illustrate a common error that most people suffer from, including me. you assume that everyone has the same advantages you have, so the only reason they resist doing it “your” way is because they are too lazy. also the reasons i gave above. but thanks for the full data, i read it and feel wiser now.
btw
i am not criticizing you. as i said, i am the same way. i am offering you another point of view.
Except if you for example said that everyone had to pay a $1.00 minimum income tax it would not affect even the 20k person a lot, and would mean s(he) could say I also pay income taxes and shut the neofederalists up.
pjr I obviously don’t agree since I think that taxes on the non rich should be cut right now.
I notice that you are offering a package deal with tax increases and larger temporary spending increases. I call political naivite. It seems to me clearly impossible to get more stimulus spending out of this congress. That means that public spending will decrease as states have to cut spending.
On the other hand, I don’t think this or any congress can block a proposal to cut taxes for the non rich. It isn’t as efficient a stimulus in GDP bang for the deficit buck, but it is better than doing nothing or raising taxes on the non rich.
Also the sense that we are all in this together might or might not be good, but enacting the policy which would be the result of that sense doesn’t create that sense. It is very very clear that the people of the USA don’t at all feel that we are all in this together. They are very angry that politicians seem to favor the rich and they want to take more from the rich.
The very striking thing demonstrated in the poll to which I linked is that this is true of Republicans and Tea Partiers too. The majority of Republicans in that poll wanted no cuts to entitlements and higher taxes on the rich (and the upper middle class). And they thought the Republican party was the one which would give them what they wanted. In fact a plurality in the poll trusted Republicans in the House to protect social security more than they trusted Obama.
It is not easy to make constructive policy proposals which might actually be enacted when the electorate and politicians are delusional. Most likely voters are clearly clueless about how to vote to get what they want. Most representatives absolutely refuse to admit that the responses to polls are what they are.
Extension of the Obama tax cuts for the non rich is not optimal policy, but you make policy with the countrymen you have not the countrymen you want. I’m absolutely sure that permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts on income under $250,000 plus temporary extension of the Obama tax cuts for 95% of working families is the best policy which might actually be enacted. Therefore its the policy I support.
I don’t think you are aware of the current US tax code Lyle. If the 20k person paid $1.00 in income tax, the 20k person would have significantly less money. Currently most 20k people have significantly negative income taxes because of the earned income tax credit.
If, for example, the 20k person has 3 kids and no husband, the sum of her income tax and social security tax would be significantly negative.
Also I don’t think you understand neofederalists. Even your hugely regressive massive tax increase on the working poor wouldn’t shut them up.
My mistake was to assume that “voters” meant voters. Since it is generally assumed that the opinions of likely voters are similar to the opinions of voters, I see no reason to adjust my conclusions at all. The general pattern is that the last polls of likely voters are confirmed by election results in the sense that the differences are within the 95% range due to sampling error. It is in particular true that people classified by reputable pollsters like Lake associates as likely voters on electoin day and the two preceding days (the sample) declare intentions to vote extremely similar to actual voting results.
In contrast, actual votes and the distribution of voting intentions of likely voters (very similar) are very different from the distribution of voting intentions of registered voters and of adults Americans. This explains the mistake of the strenthensocialsecurity people who wrote that the poll was a poll of voters (as well as writing that it was a poll of likely voters).
My mistake was to believe what I read.
You still don’t seem to have looked at the results of the poll. Not even the one page summary. You haven’t admitted that your argument that I warned you away from the link demonstrates an unwillingness to count up to two in addition to your unwillingness to read before typing.
Your ability to not see facts which contradict your claims never ceases to amaze me.
The essayist didn’t say whether a linked document is to be considered part of the essay.
The essayist did not say that blog posts are essays.
If I tried to include everything relevant in the manuscripts I send to journals rather than providing references none of them would be published.
I am astounded by the arrogance of a blog commenter who is willing to actually argue that links aren’t there to be clicked. I have noticed that you have a strange degree of self confidence, but I really never expected to read such a claim.
I am seriously wondering if you can read. You quote “To commeting without clicking” and assert that (aside from the grammar error) it means commenting on the linked material.
How did you grow up in an English speaking country without learning the meaning of the word “without.” Or rats there I used the word again (I didn’t plan too).
I now am imagining you reading the first sentence in the paragraph and wondering why I chose to write “How did you grow up in an English speaking country learning the meaning of the word.” If one were to read it that way, I suppose one would feel inclined to explain to me that there is more than one word in the English language. That one, who read the sentence unconciously eliding the word without would be just as reasonable as you are.
I previously used the term obfuscate to describe your return comments to me, and this comment is a primary example.
No, your “…mistake was to believe what I read.” It was to misread the poll due to your own beliefs, and arrogantly describe your understanding of a voting block which you have no first hand, and obviously little second hand, knowledge.
Robert, sigh! You’ve written an article on material you admit to have misread, and then made snarky comments based upon that misread material. It takes a huge level of arrogance to then waste everyone’s time in your obfuscations.
waldmann
illustrates what’s wrong with the democrats and obama. because something would be politically difficult, they take a dive rather than fight for it, or, gasp, sell it.
all those people who are worried about the deficit and willing to tax the rich could be convinced to tax themselves a small amount (that’s all it would take) and then taxing the rich would become an act of patriotism.
but we have, and sorry robert, you are a good guy, but i need a uke, robert and recently kharris, and hordes of good liberals who know what the right policy is, but they want to be invited to the party with the winners so they don’t even want to talk about right answers, only “politically feasable” answers.
btw
i asked for a summary “point-of” not the full text. in this case i enjoyed the full text, but often a summary is better than full text because it focuses on the point you wish to make. those who are really really interested can then follow the link if they wish to examine the “evidence.”
robert
for what it’s worth in the logic department… watch out for reading “all” into a statement which is only about “some.”
robert
a blog post is an essay. usually. certainly yours was.
i did not ask you to include everything, only make your point without requiring me to go to the reference. you should be able to do that in twenty five words or less. it would focus your own thinking as well as tell me if i need to look up the reference.
sorry about my self confidence. i like to think i earned it.