A Bizarre Interpretation of "Economic Populism"
The Democratic Party has correctly identified that a large measure of its success in the 2006 midterms is the result of a populist economic mood among the nation's nervous working class. One would think that the majority's response to such a mandate would be the enactment of policy measures designed to ease the burden on the sweating classes, but apparently that would make too much sense. Just last week, a United States Senate committee voted in favor of a 61-cent-per-pack tax increase on tobacco. A simple analysis of the demographic of Americans who smoke make it abundantly clear that there is no tax in existence that is as despicably regressive as the tobacco tax, so how is it that levying a tax of hundreds or even thousands of dollars per year exclusively to this low-income demographic can be a priority of a Senate that got elected on a message of economic "fairness"?
There is literally an unlimited number of reasons why tapping into the "soak the poor" cigarette tax is foolish, predatory, and dangerous, but let's just focus on the "economic populism angle. Long-suffering blue-collar voters (the demographic most likely to smoke) put their faith in the Democratic Party last fall to make government work better for them. Not a word was mentioned during that campaign that the new Congress' pending effort to "help" them included raising their tax burden by at least $500 per year while holding the cakes on the other side of the tracks harmless to new taxation. With that in mind, this is incredibly stupid politics, kicking one's own political base in the groin simply because they are the path of least resistance to accrue additional revenue for government.
Yes, I realize this is a bipartisan proposal and will undoubtedly get plenty of support from "moderate" Republicans also interested in path-of-least-resistance soak-the-poor taxation. I also realize that Bush is likely to veto this bill if it gets to his desk, likely negating its political impact heading into 2008. But its the multiple levels of disgusting precedent this measure presents that makes me physically ill. The "Democratic Congress" will be on record supporting a tobacco tax hike against working-class Americans, and the GOP will have a convincing case to be made that allowing Democrats to control government ensures the same working people who trusted them to enact "economic fairness" will be clobbered over the head with the most regressive tax of all.
Furthermore, the nanny-state precedent this tax proposal evokes ensures similar puritanical tax policy ahead even for those us (including myself) who are nonsmokers, with future "sin taxes" required to save the peasantry from the evils of Big Fast Food, Big Soda Pop, and Big Ice Cream, among others. We can basically expect that Democratic governance ensures a tax policy that is massively, massively MORE regressive than was tax policy under Republicans.
My association with the Democratic Party is a product of economic populism. I could never vote for any Republican based on their economic worldview, but why would I still vote for Democrats if expanding tax code regressivity is their endgame? By conservative estimates, figure smokers represent 15% of the electorate, and the Democratic Party is effectively handing them over to the other side by forcing them to almost single-handedly finance the cost of government. If this really is the Democratic Party's idea of economic populism, they will be forfeiting my previously guaranteed vote as well.
There is literally an unlimited number of reasons why tapping into the "soak the poor" cigarette tax is foolish, predatory, and dangerous, but let's just focus on the "economic populism angle. Long-suffering blue-collar voters (the demographic most likely to smoke) put their faith in the Democratic Party last fall to make government work better for them. Not a word was mentioned during that campaign that the new Congress' pending effort to "help" them included raising their tax burden by at least $500 per year while holding the cakes on the other side of the tracks harmless to new taxation. With that in mind, this is incredibly stupid politics, kicking one's own political base in the groin simply because they are the path of least resistance to accrue additional revenue for government.
Yes, I realize this is a bipartisan proposal and will undoubtedly get plenty of support from "moderate" Republicans also interested in path-of-least-resistance soak-the-poor taxation. I also realize that Bush is likely to veto this bill if it gets to his desk, likely negating its political impact heading into 2008. But its the multiple levels of disgusting precedent this measure presents that makes me physically ill. The "Democratic Congress" will be on record supporting a tobacco tax hike against working-class Americans, and the GOP will have a convincing case to be made that allowing Democrats to control government ensures the same working people who trusted them to enact "economic fairness" will be clobbered over the head with the most regressive tax of all.
Furthermore, the nanny-state precedent this tax proposal evokes ensures similar puritanical tax policy ahead even for those us (including myself) who are nonsmokers, with future "sin taxes" required to save the peasantry from the evils of Big Fast Food, Big Soda Pop, and Big Ice Cream, among others. We can basically expect that Democratic governance ensures a tax policy that is massively, massively MORE regressive than was tax policy under Republicans.
My association with the Democratic Party is a product of economic populism. I could never vote for any Republican based on their economic worldview, but why would I still vote for Democrats if expanding tax code regressivity is their endgame? By conservative estimates, figure smokers represent 15% of the electorate, and the Democratic Party is effectively handing them over to the other side by forcing them to almost single-handedly finance the cost of government. If this really is the Democratic Party's idea of economic populism, they will be forfeiting my previously guaranteed vote as well.
posted by Mark at 6:38 PM
6 Comments:
This tax will get absolutely nowhere. Republicans are filibustering everything else, so why wouldn't they filibuster this?
There may be enough Republican support to pass this thing in the Senate. I know Charles Grassley, Gordon Smith, and Olympia Snowe have already come out in favor of it. The Bush administration has vowed to veto it, meaning that even if it makes it through both Houses of Congress, it's DOA for now. Kind of ironic that a Bush administration veto is the only thing saving the Democrats from proudly committing suicide by spitting in the faces of their working-class base.
If the Democrats come out as the party of hyperinflating regressive sin taxes in the name of health purity crusade, I can no longer support the party. I won't become a Republican obviously, but I'll be so disillusioned that my days of carrying water for the self-proclaimed "party of the working guy" will be over.
Well, then if it passes, it is a bipartisan bill. I know there will be plenty of Democratic freshmen voting against it as well as many Southerners.
I may not agree with everything the Democrats stand for, but they are a hell of a lot better than the nightmare that we would be living under if Republicans controlled Congress again.
Im sure you don't want Social Security and Medicare gutted and a regressive "Fair Tax" implemented, which is a 23% tax on everything we buy. These things would be in grave danger of being happening if we allowed the Republicans to be in charge of lawmaking again. I don't know about you, but thats enough for me to go out and for Democratic, at least at the Congressional level.
It's true that the vote will ultimately be bipartisan if this passes, but the majority of the votes will come from Democrats, giving Republicans legitimate grounds to cite Democratic hypocricy on tax policy heading into the 2008 election. It also puts Democratic frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on record as voting for this diabolical legislation as we all know they will.
And even if enough Southern Democrats vote to kill the bill for now, the Democratic Party will be on record putting their stamp of approval on significantly raising the tax burden of working-class Americans after being elected on a message of economic fairness. That is unconscionable....and I cannot in good faith throw a broad brush of support to the animals who favor it.
There is no doubt that the Democratic Party is significantly better than the Republicans on the vast majority of the issues, but the Dems' priorities on two of the biggest domestic issues of this session (immigration and tax policy) are so disconnected from both common sense and the message that their own voters sent them last election night that they need to be humbled. You raise the example regressive 23% consumption tax, which I agree is an abomination, but even that would be less regressive than the tax policy the Democrats seem poised to embrace.....catastrophic excise taxes on every "naughty" consumer good disproportionately consumed by poor people.
I never thought I'd buy into the Ralph Nader narrative that "if they can't get it right on something like this, then what good are they?", but the party is moving closer to that position by putting a priority on policy measures that will financially devastate their own base. I haven't been this disillusioned with them since they passed NAFTA...and we all know what happened in the election following that.
I honestly don't know how I will ultimately respond in the 2008 election. I won't be voting Republican, but I may be inclined to either sit it out or vote third party if these vicious acts of betrayal continue at the pace they have thus far.
NAFTA was passed only because most Republicans supported it. Clinton would have been smart to veto it when it first came to his desk.
The difference now is that we have a Republican President and his party would have to get equal blame if he signed this bill into law.
I don't know why Democrats don't just raise taxes on those making over $1 billion a year. The reason is probably that Republican will fillibuster it like they do everything else.
I would strongly advise you not to sit out the 2008 election. It is just too important. Voting third party at the Presidential level is fine but I would urge you to stay Democratic everywhere else. The consequences of letting Republicans back in our legislatures would be grave.
At least Rep. Brad Sherman (D CA-27) led the successful fight to repeal the "snack tax".
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