Voting With Economic Interest
One popular theory of explaining how individuals choose how to cast their votes says that they consider their own pocketbook and vote with their personal economic interest at stake. This could be called “economic interest voting,” “pocketbook voting,” “rational economic voting,” or an exaggerated myth. If the average person really voted with her or his own economic interest as the chief consideration, John McCain would be polling around 20% right now and he would lose every single state in November unless he drastically changed his policies.
JH showed this telling graph on his blog a few days ago. It shows how people’s income would go up or down (by percent) based on their income percentile (click to enlarge).
All but the top 20% would see their net income go up more under Obama’s economic proposals than McCain’s, although McCain is typically seen as the thrifty tax-refunder while Obama is seen as the tax-and-spend-liberal. Clearly, these labels are incorrect.
Obama’s tax plans raise taxes on the top 1% or so in various ways while giving the majority of the economic help to those at the bottom of our economy. McCain gives a token amount of help to those at the bottom (who really need it!), but saves the majority of his huge tax cut for the extremely wealthy.
If I weren’t already so cynical, it would shock me that so many lower and middle class voters mistakenly believe that McCain is the best candidate for their own economic interest. This comes from a combination of ignorance and propaganda. Republicans shamelessly campaign on issues like killing the “death tax,” cutting capital gains taxes, eliminating the “double-taxation” on dividends,” enacting the “fair tax,” and other similar economic issues. One thing they do have is a seemingly endless supply of catch phrases. However, typical Americans are severely mistaken if they believe that these catch phrases translate into benefiting typical people like themselves. While Republicans campaign for the economic interest of the super-rich, Democrats fight to defend Social Security, extend SCHIP, and send tax breaks to the working class.
Why don’t voters vote in what appears to be in their economic interest? Mostly because there are other issues that get more press and are more easily understood. Also, most people are unaware of which policies are actually in their economic interest. It isn’t because people like getting the short end of the economic stick from the leaders they elect.
Just wondering how would you answer this?
http://tinyurl.com/4b2yll
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Found this article interesting.
http://www.slate.com/id/2194208/?from=rss
Zu
27 Jun 08 at 12:35 pm
If the arguments in that article were applied to my question about economic self-interest, they would have to be framed as “enlightened self-interest,” since the writer does not argue that typical individuals would benefit directly as much from McCain’s tax policies, but that the economy overall would be better and that would tend to help everyone out.
First of all, I don’t think that the writer’s arguments are that enlightened. Obama’s tax plans come close to the kinds of tax structures we had in the 90s, but still aren’t that high. The economy overall was pretty good in the 90s. McCain’s tax plan is even more irresponsible to the overall economy and even more beneficial to the very few at the extreme top of our country than Bush’s, which have not quite brought about the overall economic success of the 90s.
Second, even if it were enlightened, people typically are not. Even highly educated economists have difficulties interpreting and predicting macro economic trends and applying them to policy. Average people have no idea about how tax structures really affect the overall economy, and many of them can barely spell GDP.
Third, even if it were enlightened, and people were enlightened enough to see it, they would choose self interest over enlightened self interest almost every time. Individuals, politicians, companies, and nations all look out for Number One first and ignore enlightened self interest whenever possible.
David M. Manes
27 Jun 08 at 1:20 pm
I want to talk more about Social Security, the payroll tax, and Obama’s plan, but that will come later in a separate post. Stay tuned…
David M. Manes
27 Jun 08 at 1:20 pm
The NRO article was obviously biased but it piqued my interest all the same. I knew I could count on someone here to put some light to it without assuming that I agreed with the article. Much appreciated.
Looking forward to the upcoming post.
Zu
27 Jun 08 at 1:35 pm