Poor conservatives, I don't get it. Righties please explain.

[All Along The Watchtower]

I recently spoke with a hard core Republican who makes not much more then minimum wage who was opposed to the Jobs Bill because it would raise taxes.  WHAT!  Are you kidding me, With his Clinton era Earned Income tax rate, and his Obama era Make work Pay $850, he probably pays little to nothing in taxes.  In fact, because of Liberals, he probably gets a check back.  He will also have to work his whole life to make enough to reach the one million mark that someone else would have to make in a year to be effected.  Yet he thinks HIS taxes could go up because of Obama.

I also recently talked to a farmer who commented on all of those ADC moms breaking our country.  He was recenly paid $25,000 in farm subsidies.  That's alot of ADC checks folks.

Turn on the TV and see old folks on Social Security marching in Tea party rallies.  Since FDR, the right has faught against that which keeps them out of squaller.

I could go on and on..........

Why are there so many Republicans who go to the polls with a rope so that the people they vote for can hang them???

In those cases, they probably resent the idea, whether they're conscious of it or not, that their taxes may pay for "those other people."

Of course, they like to think it's because they're "self-made men"...as they continue to receive more government aid than they put in.

[All Along The Watchtower]

For quite some time in America's early history, there was a class of small-landholding yeoman farmers. It's this legacy-Jefferson referred to these men as the 'basis of republican values"-that has given rise to the historical-based myth of "American rugged individualism."

[All Along The Watchtower]

I also think the more liberals complain about "poor people voting against their best interests", the more some poor people will vote Republican.

And really, many poor people are apolitical anyway.

[All Along The Watchtower]

I think Democrats give their party too much credit for being "not as bad as the Republicans."

[All Along The Watchtower]

Just because many teenage to 20 something year old Dems on these forums think that whatever the tax rates are has no impact on the broad economy, prevalence of jobs, incomes, etc. doesn't mean that there isn't a large group of people in this country that disagree. And those things matter to yes even many poor people.

Just because you disagree, doesn't mean you're necesssarily correct.

[All Along The Watchtower]

People don't get that they are the welfare queens. All our schools and roads and police etc don't come cheap. We all are beneficiaries. There is a huge state of denial.

It's even worse with corporations and the 1%.  They all assume they made their billions in a vacuum.  The deny using tax payer funded roads to move their cargo.  They deny using tax payer funded ports to import and export their cargo.  They deny using tax payer funded airports.  They deny using tax payer funded courts to defend their business interests.  Nope the taxpayer didn't provide any of these facilities for their businesses.  They did it all by themselves.  It's disgusting.

And the taxpayer funded government upholds the corporation's "right" as a "person."

[All Along The Watchtower]

A lot of this stems from GOP fear tactics of the past 25-30 years. They have been able to play on poor whites fears of race, homosexuality, change etc. and it has basically given them power.

It also doesn't help the Democrats have a reputation as out of touch and have really done nothing to change that narrative.

Here comes another ignorant shill ^^^^^ to furnish us with his oversimplified thought vomit.

What part of that was inaccurate?

[All Along The Watchtower]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2011/02/the_submerged_state_in_one_gra.html

[All Along The Watchtower]

Since when are tax deductions 'programs'? Is that more 'spending in the tax code' I wasn't aware of?

They have the same effect as "programs."

[All Along The Watchtower]

Since when are tax deductions 'programs'? Is that more 'spending in the tax code' I wasn't aware of?

Yes the mortgage interest deduction is a government program to increase home ownership.  It discriminates against people like me who rent.

A government policy isn't the same as a "program." The word "Program" implies spending.

Both cost the government revenue, though. Both are tailored to certain groups over others. Both could be called "welfare."

Those of us on the left of American politics are pointing out the right's hypocrisy and inconsistency regarding government programs. They can not like government in general, that's fine. I hear Somalia doesn't have a very powerful government.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Since when are tax deductions 'programs'? Is that more 'spending in the tax code' I wasn't aware of?

They have the same effect as "programs."

No they don't. They are completely different things. And this only further demonstrates that you don't really have a clue as to what your talking about.

How are they different?

[All Along The Watchtower]

While I might quibble with the way you put number 1, I would agree with assessment.

The original OP though was about a poor conservative complaining about the idea of tax rates going up. Why would people like him care? Because they think it will affect their employment, salary, and standard of living even if the brunt of the tax increases aren't directed squarely at them.

Granted poor conservatives that focus on the list you just provided outnumber poor FiCons, but that doesn't mean that there aren't a ton of poor FiCons out there(especially among younger folks). And its reasonably safe to assume that the people the OP is referring to that decry tax increases are more likely to be in the group I just mentioned not the one that you provided at the top.

But again we are also speaking in generalities here. There isn't a really a fine line between poor cultural conservatives and poor FiCons since there is large amounts of overlap.

But they do pay taxes. Here in New Jersey when they doubled the budget from $16 billion to $33 billion they increased taxes on poor conservatives.

Why?

Mostly to pay for massive increases in Medicaid and massive increases in the hiring of unproductive teachers and state workers. Neither of which benefits the common man.

Seriously?

[All Along The Watchtower]

Class size has little or nothing to do with the quality of education in fact, unless you get the class size down to 12 or less. That is yet another factlet that the teachers' unions don't want you to know about, along with the median academic performance level of the current crop of teachers.

Source?

[All Along The Watchtower]

Having reflected a bit on this thread, here's what I think now:

-America has a tradition of "rugged individualism" in its past. As late as the early 1900s, many Americans still lived on family farms, worked for themselves (self-employed), and didn't have many ties to the government or to big business. This is the Jeffersonian/Jacksonian ideal: America as a land of self-employed farmers, artisans, smallholders, etc.  Those people and their descendants think of themselves as being "self-reliant."

-Many of the poor who vote Republican are from rural, small-town areas. They are thus, less (or less obviously) dependent on government than a high-density urban area.

-Furthermore, the small towns that vote Republican, many of which have been hit hard by global economic trends, are often highly conservative culturally. This is understandable; if you or your neighbor loses his or her job, if the quality of life in the town has declined, you start voting based on you or your community's core values, rather than economic "self-interest."

-Republicans do a far better job than Democrats at appealing to rural areas and small towns. It's not merely cultural conservatism or hot-button "wedge issues": a lot of rural people genuinely resent the wealthier urban areas' influence and power, and urban usually means Democratic in voting habits. Reagan was from small-town rural America, and was himself a former Democrat; he understood and could communicate with small-town "middle America."


That's what I think, anyway.

[All Along The Watchtower]

-Many of the poor who vote Republican are from rural, small-town areas. They are thus, less (or less obviously) dependent on government than a high-density urban area.

-Republicans do a far better job than Democrats at appealing to rural areas and small towns. It's not merely cultural conservatism or hot-button "wedge issues": a lot of rural people genuinely resent the wealthier urban areas' influence and power, and urban usually means Democratic in voting habits. Reagan was from small-town rural America, and was himself a former Democrat; he understood and could communicate with small-town "middle America."

The last time I was in the South during election season I went to rural Texas and there were several Democrats running for local office unopposed.  There is a very strong rural Democratic tradition.  In the south it has to do with the Republican Lincoln freeing the slaves.  The growing Republican influence was due to LBJ (a Democrat) signing into law civil rights legislation.  It's as simply as that.  You take racism out of the equation and you have a very differnt picture.

So rural white people are just a bunch of stupid racists who don't know what's good for them?  Because that's what you imply.

[All Along The Watchtower]

-Many of the poor who vote Republican are from rural, small-town areas. They are thus, less (or less obviously) dependent on government than a high-density urban area.

-Republicans do a far better job than Democrats at appealing to rural areas and small towns. It's not merely cultural conservatism or hot-button "wedge issues": a lot of rural people genuinely resent the wealthier urban areas' influence and power, and urban usually means Democratic in voting habits. Reagan was from small-town rural America, and was himself a former Democrat; he understood and could communicate with small-town "middle America."

The last time I was in the South during election season I went to rural Texas and there were several Democrats running for local office unopposed.  There is a very strong rural Democratic tradition.  In the south it has to do with the Republican Lincoln freeing the slaves.  The growing Republican influence was due to LBJ (a Democrat) signing into law civil rights legislation.  It's as simply as that.  You take racism out of the equation and you have a very differnt picture.

So rural white people are just a bunch of stupid racists who don't know what's good for them?  Because that's what you imply.

The average person in general is pretty ignorant.  This thread was asking a specific question about poor conservative voters.  And yes I think the average person doesn't know what's good for them.  That's why they majority of them are overweight or obese.

And yes I believe poor southern rural whites tend to be more racist than educated northeastern people of all races.  Am I wrong?  Was my very general accounting of the history of party influence in the South erroneous?  Please correct me if I'm wrong.

There are plenty of educated people in my area-a 70% Obama area of well-educated liberals- who are racist. I've heard it. I've seen it.  But it's more of a subtle, dismissive, condescending racism than a "goddamn n-ggers" racism.

Do you not understand that more education is correlated with higher income? That's what creates resentment, among poor rural whites, among poor people in general.

Btw, many of the wealthiest counties in America were Obama counties. You're being so dismissive of poor people voting Republican, yet you praise wealthier (I'm sorry, more "educated")  people who vote Democratic. Generally, people don't like it when you call them stupid bigots who are voting the "wrong" way-as if the Democrats and the Republicans, nationally, really were that different!