The “but Republicans will never tax me, just those other people” scam is arguably the most successful example of wishful thinking and voting against your own self-interest that I’ve ever seen. From the Des Moines Register:
Two-thirds of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers earning less than $50,000 a year believe they personally would be better off or in the same situation under Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan, The Des Moines Register’s new Iowa Poll shows.
Research-group reviews of the plan have found that most families making $100,000 or less would pay thousands of dollars more each year.
“The larger point is that people don’t really understand what the 9-9-9 plan actually is, and they’re assuming incorrectly that they may not pay one or any of these taxes,” said Joe Rosenberg, a research associate for the Tax Policy Center, a group based in Washington, D.C., that bills itself as a nonpartisan economic research institute.
That “incorrect assumption” is of course the entire point of the plan. These are folks that expect the GOP to stick it to the “47% that pay no income tax” which of course would never, ever include any Real Americans voting in GOP primaries. The cloud of ignorance that makes it so easy to lead the nation off a cliff is largely self-inflicted, and that’s just how the GOP and their corporate masters like it.
More importantly, Iowa Republicans are honestly expecting the GOP’s flotilla of flat tax nonsense to punish the Others, (you know, “welfare queens”, “young bucks on the street corner”, and “those people in the day labor parking lot”) not any of them. That’s what the dog whistle semaphore is spelling out for them day after day on FOX and El Rushbo. They truly believe that the notion that a consumption tax would ever be levied against working-class Republican voters in the Heartland is nothing more than a cruel liberal media trick.
The rest of the flat tax supporters know full well they’re being asked to pay higher taxes along with the Others but also think that the super rich will reward them for their suffering, like the Midwest is full of roaming packs of Job Creation Angels who will zoom out of the sky and tag the deserving like Oprah used to give away prizes to her audience. (“You get a job and YOU get a job and YOU get a job and YOU ALL GET JOBS!” Cue giant box of jobs.) These celestial hiring managers of course only visit the worthy, so you’d better be able to take your suffering like a Real American. They’re counting on getting a little something from the guys up at the top the trickle pile and calling it rain.
The devil convincing the world he never existed, and all that.
Culture of Truth
The flip side of this, and arguably just as important, is the belief that “Republicans will never cut spending I like, only spending for other people.”
Davis X. Machina
Given an honest GOP Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur, and not “In God We Trust” or “E Pluribus Unum”, would go on all the coinage.
That, or Al Davis’ “Just win, baby!”
FlipYrWhig
@Culture of Truth: Or the corollary: if the government stopped spending so much on Other People, we’d stop getting gouged on taxes. When you see yourself only as one of the people getting gouged by the government, never as a beneficiary of it — even when you’re obviously actually, tangibly benefiting — you just might be a Republican.
Linda Featheringill
This information actually causes me to respect Iowa caucus participants more. Perhaps they’re just misinformed and not crazy or a bunch of other things even worse.
I wonder if they suffer from a lack of imagination. Have they tried to imagine what it would be like to have a 9% consumption tax? Have they imagined what it would be like to try to exist on what you could earn through day labor?
They seem to operate under the delusion that if you take care of the Fat Cat, he’ll take care of you.
Sucker.
deep cap
YOU LIE!!!
Culture of Truth
@FlipYrWhig: Indeed, and if you see things that way, little wonder you support “smaller government,” to the extent that you get what you want, you finally end up carrying signs like “Get the Government Out of My Medicare”
(I mean the universal ‘you’, not you.)
Steve
In a sense, you can’t analyze the 9-9-9 plan because nobody knows exactly what it is. Cain has made enough vague and confusing statements about rebates and how of course he’s not going to screw the middle class, that’s just what the liberal media wants you to think, blah blah blah, that it’s no wonder people are confused.
Morbo
What’s that old internet gem about willingness to live in a refrigerator box as long as “the other” wouldn’t get one?
The Moar You Know
These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know…morons.
Holden Pattern
Mencken’s vicious misanthropic cynicism never seems to age out.
terry
well, these are folks who think the earth is less than 10,000 years old and their god poofed the universe out of its cloacha in 6 literal days, so of course they’re going to think the 9-9-9 plan will work for them.
Stupid is as stupid does.
Brian R.
You know, when billionaires like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates say that we should roll the tax rates on the richest Americans back to where they were in the 1990s, Republicans always sneer “well, if those individuals want to pay more in their taxes, they’re welcome to send Washington a check!”
We need to do the same to the Cain voters. You think this is a brilliant idea? Great, sign this legally-binding agreement to pay your next year’s taxes by the 9-9-9 nonsense and then we’ll take your concerns seriously. And then we’ll take all your money, morons.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
As someone observed here before, the Devil’s greatest trick was convincing people that they are working against him when they are actually working for him.
gbear
I like Bachmann’s recent statement saying that she would have a flat tax with multiple levels. She’s a genius!
gbear
@gbear:Bachmann quote for my comment, via C&L:
Brian S
Fucking math, man. How does it work? (Miracles)
catclub
@gbear: wow. If someone on the other side proposed just that she would recognize that
‘raise revenues for the federal government’ as a tax hike.
Since she said it, she doesn’t. Wow again.
burnspbesq
The architect of the 999 plan is “a former Wells Fargo financial planner.”
Not sure what else one might need to know.
As far as analysis of the plan is concerned, the definitive takedown is Ed Kleinbard’s (tax prof at USC Law and former chief os staff of the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation). It’s on SSRN.
Citizen Alan
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Yes, as I’ve said many times, Jesus was quite specific that a man cannot serve both God and Mammon. Far too many “Christians” in this country get around that by serving Mammon and pretending that Mammon is Jesus.
kindness
Is that Republican shorthand for white people?
Brachiator
I wonder if it is really just Republicans. People tend to think they will be better off if you say you are going to reduce their taxes and simplify the system.
rikryah
they are dumb muthafuckas.
period
Rafer Janders
@Citizen Alan:
Genius.
Davis X. Machina
“Last place aversion”, per Scientific American.
Because They might take my sparrow, and my curtain rod.
racrecir
Jun 4, 2009 Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX): Let me just say — this is going to sound radical, I don’t mean for it to be radical — but to me, the greatest threat to America is not necessarily a recession or even another terrorist attack. The greatest threat to America is a liberal media bias.
racrecir
2004 According to the most recent Gallup poll, 62% of Republicans think Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks.
2009 Condoleezza Rice: No one was arguing that Saddam Hussein somehow had something to do with 9/11.
–
God has promised us abundance, and He delivers.
racrecir
“– God has promised us abundance, and He delivers.”
That’s from me…not part of the quote.