Third Rail
Why is raising taxes considered a third rail? Why does the idea of lower taxes sell so well in the US? Libertarian-backed tax cutting and budget restriction laws cripple many state governments and no one seems to touch them. Attempts to try often fail at the ballot box. People who pay little to no taxes consistently vote to cut taxes for wealthier people. In California Prop 13, the single biggest cause of California’s biggest problems: (transit, housing costs and poor eduction), is considered a third rail that no serious politician will even discuss repealing. Why are people voting against their own interest? What happened in this country that caused the marginal tax rate (federal) for someone make $30k to be 10%, and someone making 300k 35%?
I wonder about these things.
May 1st, 2007 12:39
You are getting at the question that Thomas Frank raises in _What’s the Matter with Kansas?_, but he answers it by saying that what we have is a “contradiction” - “a working-class movement that has done incalculable harm to working-class people.” However, Walter Benn Michaels argues, in the excellent book I’ve been quoting lately, _The Trouble with Diversity_, that what we have here is not a contradiction… “there isn’t really any contradiction in thinking that it’s more important to stop abortion than it is to further your economic interests. There’s not even any contradiction in thinking that it’s more important to eliminate the estate tax (an act that benefits the rich) when you are yourself poor, would never have had to pay such a tax anyway, and might have benefited from the money the tax would raise. If you think the tax is wrong, you’re right to be against it - whether or not it’s in your interest. The real contradiction is between our support for equal opportunity and our support for all the things that make our opportunities unequal. So it won’t work just to convince people that they’re acting against their own economic interests. The point must be to convince them they’re acting unjustly.” (pp. 139-140)
May 1st, 2007 14:23
I read “what the matter with Kansas” and I think it was interesting but the thesis was wrong. i think a lot of the problem is that despite the current unraveling of the Republican party the right has succeeded beyond the dreams of Foucault. The have completely eliminated the idea of an objective reality from the national discourse. If nothing is true people believe the constant barrage of lies, because as far as they can tell the truth is subjective anyway.
May 1st, 2007 15:55
Yes, the republican party seems to have abandoned the concern for backing-up arguments with reasons and evidence. This is seen symptomatically in their calls for “intellectual diversity” at universities (hiring more conservative professors, teaching intelligent design, etc.). For an awesome satire of these calls for “intellectual diversity,” check out Aaron Swartz’s “Intellectual Diversity at Stanford”.