Unfortunately, the typical voter responds positively to the conservative low tax message.

[pnwmom]

This voter sees no conflict between his belief in liberal policies and services and his wish for low taxes. That's why they can keep voting for Republicans and Libertarians. They hear the "low tax" part of the message and assume that everything else can be worked out.

I used to work for a major national polling firm that did political studies every year. And this was constant. Voters always wanted lower taxes AND more government services. They were always certain there was "fat" in the budget that could be cut out AND used to pay for expanded services. And they would have happily voted for a law that said that every year taxes should be lowered by 5% -- never realizing that eventually, under this plan, there would be no tax money left to cut.

[bluestateguy]

1. Bob Dole was pitching a %15 tax cut in 1996

It went nowhere. If people have good jobs and rising 401K's, they will see through the tax cut talk as just politicians' pandering.

[pnwmom]

2. Reagan succeeded with his tax cuts. And so did Bush. n/t

[Man from Pickens]

3. Yeah but that was Bob Dole

and Bob Dole knows that Bob Dole was a horrifically bad candidate. Right Bob? Right you are Bob. I'm Bob Dole, and Bob Dole approves this message.*











*this will make sense to anyone who remembers that campaign clearly

[One_Life_To_Give]

4. +1

[raging moderate]

5. They hear the "low tax' phrase and assume that the Republicons mean it for them.

They don't listen and they don't read very much, so they don't realize that the Republicon policies will lower taxes for the billionaires, not for middle-income or lower-income people, or that many Republicons want to actually raise taxes for lower-income people (conveniently forgetting that these people are already paying higher sales taxes and payroll taxes). Also, down the road, somebody would have to pick up the tab for the repair of our increasingly crumbling infrastructure. Good luck getting that out of our ultra-greedy ultra-snobbish top one percent!

[atreides1]

6. Voters always wanted lower taxes AND more government services.

How the hell is that suppose to work?

So, what you're saying is that the typical voter is like Pavlov's dogs...the difference being that the dogs in the long term were smarter then the typical voter...

[adirondacker]

7. Why does WA State have one of the most regressive tax structures in the country?

I can understand people that think that sales tax, sin tax, and property tax (All Regressive)should be lowered on the middle class and poor.

I can also fully support a progressive income tax system along with a tax on industry if they are effecting the environment and using public resources.

What I can't understand is a state that prides itself on a progressive populace and passed marijuana legalization overwhelmingly insists on taxing lower income citizens out of their homes and into the streets.

[pnwmom]

9. Because most people here don't like the idea of an income tax.

They're like most people everywhere. They like the idea of low taxes and high services.

And they think they can control a sales tax more than an income tax.

I voted for the income tax when it was recently on the ballot, but I wasn't surprised to see it defeated.

(By the way, WA state has lower rates of homelessness than CA, Oregon, or New York -- all of which have income taxes and are progressive states.)

http://b.3cdn.net/naeh/52d2c72cb276905d88_7gm6vi6ji.pdf

[adirondacker]

11. Interesting. I wonder how many people are sold on the idea that all tax is evil as opposed

to the idea of having a little more taken out of their paychecks and a little less to spend on backpacking gear.

Homelessness might not be the best indicator since there is the environment of survivability along with the state's economy. I watched as WA pushed through the recession with little effect thanks to Microsoft, Boeing, etc while Oregon's unemployment numbers skyrocketed. California has priced anyone without a million dollar trust fund out of the housing market.

New York (I don't consider it a progressive state) has been hemorrhaging middle class jobs to the south with no replacement industry in upstate. The city has been pricing the middle class out. Meanwhile, property taxes skyrocketed (my own more than doubled in 5 years) and there has been increases in sales taxes as well. Unfortunately there is no escaping these taxes even if you are poor.

I look to the state of VT as an example of the most progressive, virtually no homelessness, decent healthcare, and, for the most part, affordable housing (although that's become an issue with the influx of wealthy flatlanders).

Here's my proposed solution; every student in high school should learn basic tax structure and understand the difference between a progressive tax and a regressive one. Econ 101a pass/ fail. Pass in order to vote.

They can even use wikipedia as a study guide...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_tax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tax

[kelliekat44]

8. Yes, that is because they don't understand that most of the tax burden they feel is state and local.

And no one in the Dem party seems to want to educate them that as Federal taxes and revenues decline thanks to conservative pushing for smaller government, more of the revenue burden will be required from states and localities. They don't understand and no one seems to want to tell them that the Feds subsidize huge services for their states, town, and cities. Take NJ...property taxes and tolls together probably account for more of their out of pocket taxes than anything the Federal government takes from them. Few will sit down and count it up...it's just too easy to blame all taxes on the Federal government, especially while Obama is President.

[Chathamization]

10. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Try talking to voters about a anti-corruption candidate trying to improve

government services, and find out if they'll only support a candidate who is for tax cuts for the wealthy. Or you see people praising candidates for cutting taxes for the wealthy, because they're "protecting our seniors" (well, only our seniors who are millionaires, but hey, a senior is a senior, right?). And the kicker? These attitudes came from relatively liberal Democrats (Republican attitude, of course, being even worse).

I've gotten to the point where I'm almost supportive of any government spending, since surpluses tend to mean tax cuts for the rich.

[AgingAmerican]

12. That is because there is no counter-message

nt

[Ampersand Unicode]

13. The "fat" in the budget is "welfare services"

They're perfectly OK throwing billions of dollars at the war machine to blow up brown people who don't worship JEEEEEEEEZUS.

But the minute you want to provide healthcare and nutrition to struggling fellow citizens, you're a dirty, filthy communist.

The reason for this is because of the racialization (and sexualization, and "otherization&quot of poverty and public services in the minds of white Americans (the majority of conservatives). AKA Reagan's "Welfare Queen." If taxes are used for things that benefit "ME" it's OK; if it's used for dirty mud people, it needs to be abolished. This is why 'Muricans oppose immigration reform: it means that "sweaty Mexicans" might benefit from "MY TAX DOLLURS" which of course, only whites are deserving of as a generous "gift" from the government for being such good little god-fearin' patriots.

The logical disconnect, the confirmation bias, has everything to do with race, which is inextricably connected to class. These voters are more sympathetic to rural whites in trailers getting a government paycheck than they will ever be to anyone darker than a paper bag. Heck, even when minority individuals do manage to "pull themselves up by the bootstraps," like Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates or superstar physicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, it "wasn't on their own merits" because "affirmative action" or "quotas" or some other detriment that allows whites to justify their own false sense of superiority. I love hearing this one: "Oprah must have had something to do with it."

They see taxes as paying for nothing but "government cheese" for "undesirables," and fail to realize all the things that public investment has brought us otherwise. They also fail to see the importance of a safety net for anyone other than themselves. Even when it's clearly pointed out that taxes pay for things like NASA, they say who cares, defund it, "save my money," because "what good is it to shell out money so that we can go and find aliens on Mars. WE GOT ALIENS COMING IN THROUGH MEXICO!!!" Taxes pay for public schools, but "who cares because we homeschool our kids in the righteous education of the Lord." (Which I guess means they won't be working for NASA.) Taxes pay for roads, but "who cares because I'm sick of getting stuck in traffic for all that construction." Taxes pay for medical research, but "who cares because all they're doing is studying cures for AIDS sex and ways to do abortion."

They don't want anything funded that doesn't directly benefit them, in a tangible right-here-right-now way that they (and only they) can experience firsthand -- and which doesn't "violate" their narrow world view. The kicker is that they think that if they vote in guys who will cut those services, that they're going to get a big fat refund doled out to them for all the "useless" things "their" tax dollars didn't pay for. No matter how many times you tell them that it's just going to be diverted to more waste that benefits nobody but the elites. Basically, they feel even that doesn't really matter, as long as "the other" doesn't get anything at all. Because they've already got something to fall back on -- even if it's just their own delusions and their "faith" that it'll all work out because the man upstairs will sort it out on Judgment day. The rest of us who do see reality are having it slap us right in the face.