The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit
that carries any reward. ~ John Maynard Keynes
The Democrats will never ever be able to convince voters that increasing their taxes will lead to their or the public's benefit. The Republicans' decades-long push to lower taxes has simply been too successful and too resonant. Despite their public bitching, moaning, and unseemly whining, the Dems' logic-based arguments to promote tax increases (pretty much exclusively focused on taxing rich folks) as a necessary item in the public sector's fiscal relief, is a doomed cause. Why? Because of the American Dream and the underlying motivations of many non-rich voters.
The disappearing "middle-class" voter may possibly understand that raising taxes on the rich could help him/her (by providing more government funding for programs that they benefit from), but these same voters hold more dear their strong belief/faith that they are part of the "American Dream," and in due course they themselves can become "rich" if only allowed to by getting the government off their backs. They don't want tax increases because they eventually would have to pay them when they become rich and because all government programs are wastes of money.
The Dems have never bothered to mount an effective counter to this underlying, powerful motivator of the anti-tax movement. The Dems rightly argue that in general government programs are needed, necessary and are in the public interest, and these programs require funding from tax revenues. That's quite true. But the Repubs' on-going "starve the beast" tirade (with specific, but in reality exceptional, examples of waste and mismanagement) against Big Government is far more emotionally stirring – the Repubs exceptional examples prove the rule for why a faithful American Dream voter should always vote against tax increases, even if it's not in the voter's current self-interest. Other than emotion, how else can you explain the illogic of proto-typical American Dreamers shouting, "Get the government out of my Social Security?"
When it comes to a political third-rail of asking people to pay more taxes, specificity (and emotion) always trumps generality (and logic). Is the Repub argument duplicitous and hypocritical? Absolutely. Oh well, but anti-tax voting remains emotionally satisfying to folks who desperately wish they too will somehow, sometime achieve the American Dream and become rich – just like The Donald. Unless the Dems come up with a simple, unified, emotionally-resonant counter-argument against "starve the beast," they will never overcome the anti-taxers' broad appeal.
What could the Dems do? They could be as extreme as the Repubs by taking long, deep breath, swallow hard and say, OK we "see the light," let's agree to starve the beast, and publicly give the Republicans absolutely 100% of the credit for undertaking sweepingly harsh cuts to government expenditures and see how popular that really will be. This dramatic approach is mentioned in Adam Nagourney's New York Times Magazine article about California Gov. Jerry Brown; "… the only way a majority of Americans might reconsider [increased] taxes is if they experience the full brunt of spending cuts, not only in California but also in Washington.'People have never experienced cutting like that before,' Brown told me. 'That will create turbulence.' What Brown is proposing is to demonstrate just how disruptive a radically smaller government would be.”
I believe fully implementing the Repubs' all-cuts, "beast" strategy would not only be turbulent; it also would be painfully disruptive. The pain would have to be felt by citizens over an extended time period (not just 1 or 2 years) to cause significant change in voting patterns.
And pain would be felt because of the "We'll show those ungrateful voters something…" response by public decision-makers. When faced with voter disapproval about existing govt budget priorities (e.g., refusals to increase taxes), each and every govt "decision-maker" and/or bureaucrat always follows up and creates the most pain by making cuts to "vital" services (e.g., library hours, police and fire services on the local level, education spending on the state level, or health program spending – including the pittance spent on Planned Parenthood - on the federal level) rather than undertake a small amount of thinking and actually reduce waste and bureaucracy connected with non-vital public payrolls and programs that account for far more money than the "vital" ones they're all too ready to cut.
The Dems would have to uncharacteristically espouse a completely unified message that the affected voters' personal hurt (principally the so-called "lower 90" – meaning families outside of the top 10% of income/wealth holders) is completely due to the Repubs. This could be a challenge, since the Repubs are quite experienced at being deceitful and would surely portray the public tumult as being caused by the Dems.
Would the tumult be worth it for the Dems? Impossible to say, but based on the unyielding fiscal intransience of the Repubs (and Dems to a lesser extent), it may be worth serious consideration. If raising taxes is impossible, change the political game by declaring a victory and see what happens.
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