Turn out the lights

Turn out the lights, the party is over

by John S. Pappas

As soon as the words “I will roll back the tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals who make over $200,000 a year” crossed John Kerry’s lips during his acceptance speech in Boston, it was over for him. Baring an unforeseen scandal or economic calamity, John Kerry will lose the election for President of the United States.

Kerry’s announcement is remarkable considering no Democrat since Walter Mondale would suggest such a thing, at least not explicitly. The Democrats must see something in their focus group polling that the rest of us have missed.

Every major pundit and pollster describes political America as a nation closely divided. In 2000, George Bush won the election in Florida and hence the United States by a mere 537 votes. Yet John Kerry appears willing to alienate a major voter block.

According to the Annual Demographic Survey for 2002 conducted jointly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Bureau of the Census, there are 1,722,000 individuals earning over two hundred thousand dollars annually. According to the Census Bureau’s voting statistics for 2000, 74.9% of upper-income families vote, a percentage higher than all other income groups and significantly higher than families earning under thirty-five thousand dollars annually.

With 74.9% percent of individuals earning over 200k voting, Kerry is risking alienating approximately 1,291,500 voters. Despite these figures, the overall percentage of individuals earning over $200k who vote amount to fewer than three percent of the total population who vote.

Approximately one hundred and ten million people voted in 2000, and the overwhelming majority of them were middle class voters. Kerry prefaced his tax increase statement with a promise to provide the middle class an additional tax cut. It is from this group that Kerry seeks to stir the resentment of the middle class against the wealthy.

The last Democrat who promised a middle class tax cut, Bill Clinton, not only failed to deliver, he raised taxes on everyone. Americans remember this. Additionally, Kerry’s promise to cut taxes for the middle class must be considered in light of the other things he is saying.

Since the Democrat convention, John Kerry has begun to outline the types of legislation his administration will pursue. All of it involves increased spending - guaranteeing health care for million, expanding the size of America’s standing army by tens of thousands, and expanding after school programs to millions are examples of this. It seems unlikely that increasing the taxes of under two million people will generate sufficient revenue to pay for Kerry’s programs, especially if a new middle class tax cut is involved.

In light of the recent success of the U.S. economy, which most agree is primarily due to Bush’s tax cuts, it is surprising that the Kerry campaign believes that announcing any sort of tax increase will help Kerry be elected.

In the offer to reduce middle class taxes, Kerry recognizes that tax cuts are appealing to working Americans. His offer to penalize the highest earners in an effort to appeal to those earning less however, reveals a flawed understanding of working America, its opportunities, and its people.

The class structure in America does not relegate individuals to permanent membership in a particular class. The poor of today are often the middle class of tomorrow, and thus the middle class of today are often the wealthy of the future. Many in the middle class expect to become wealthy (if earnings of 200K annually make one wealthy) and as a result they have become empathetic towards those who pay well more than their fair share in taxes. Additionally, wealth is not finite, as those who promote class envy would have us believe. Just because someone or group has a large percentage of wealth does not mean it is at the expense of another person or group.

In this election, beyond the issue of security, it is still the economy, stupid. When John Kerry pledges to increase taxes on individuals earning $200k or more he raises the specter of tax increases for all ala Bill Clinton. In the midst of a recovery born of tax cuts, raising taxes smacks of a recipe for economic disaster, and a prescription for a Kerry loss this November.