Steven Pearlstein has a new take on the phenomenon of voting against your self-interest. Summarizing a Pew Charitable Trust study, he reminds us of what we already know.
10 states that receive less than a dollar back for every dollar they send to Washington: Delaware, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island. And here are the states that get more than $2 back for every $1 in taxes paid: Mississippi, New Mexico, West Virginia, Hawaii, South Carolina, Alabama, Maine, Montana, Alaska, Virginia, Arizona, Idaho, Kentucky and Vermont. You don’t have to be a political scientist to see the blue state/red state pattern here. Red state voters may talk a good game about small government and low taxes, but in reality they are socialist moochers.
He wonders why Democrats do not recognize the golden opportunity that Trump is handing them.
Democrats should see the opportunity here — an opportunity to turn the Republican program to their selfish advantage and create the kind of society where people look out for each other and business interests are not allowed to run roughshod over workers and consumers.
While Trump and his minions are busy creating the dystopia of small government, low taxes and greatly reduced spending, Democrats could be designing the society of their dreams.
After all, if Republicans cut taxes — in particular, taxes on investment income — then the biggest winners are going to be the residents of Democratic states where incomes, and thus income taxes, are significantly higher. Governors and legislatures in those states — home to roughly half of all Americans — will now have the financial headroom to raise state income and business taxes by as much as the federal government cuts them — and use the additional revenue to replace all the federal services and benefits that Republicans have vowed to cut.
This could work. This could really work. My blue county had six different measures on the November ballot for raising taxes, and ALL of them passed. The key here is state taxes. What could blue states do with their tax bonanza?
1. State single payer health insurance.
2. State funded improvements to education.
3. Return state universities to the low-to-no tuition model.
4. Climate change remediation regulations.
5. Creation of customer-owned state-chartered mutual banks, insurance and investment companies.
6. Raise minimum wage.
Democrats could lead the way by abandoning divisive partisan politics and embracing Republican wisdom.
...it is the Republicans who have preached the wisdom of returning more power and responsibility to the states, under the assumption that states would do less, not more, than Washington.
Let’s show Republicans what real governance looks like.