Mitt really put his foot in it, or on it, with his now famous though beginning to recede a bit from memory gaffe/not a gaffe regarding the lower 47 percent. The problem for Republicans, and for conservatives, is that they’re split pretty much in half as to whether Mitt was right as Reagan or wrong as Roosevelt.
If you had asked me last month what I thought of National Review editor Rich Lowry, I would have said that he was a back-stabbing, right-wing son of a bitch. Well, now I have to say he’s a back-stabbing, right-wing son of a bitch who can deliver an intelligent argument, which he does in this recent piece in Politico. As Rich points out, it has been Republican Party policy as far back as the Reagan Administration to consciously reduce the number of low-income families subject to the federal income tax. In fact, it was “family-friendly” tax cuts that constituted the glue that tied together Wall Street and the Religious Right. Leaders of the Religious Right understood that the national Republican Party was not going to deliver on serious anti-abortion measures at the national level. But in return for stiffing the base, they had to give something of value, and what is more valuable than a tax cut, or, if you’re really low-wage, a tax credit? There’s nobody who doesn’t like money, is there?
Unsurprisingly, it worked, all through George W.’s first term. George was, notoriously, the biggest sugar daddy of them all, cutting taxes like a madman and creating a whole new entitlement, for prescription drugs—and Paul Ryan, supposedly the thinking man’s conservative—voted for them all.
Thanks, I suspect, to the tireless proselytizing of Ramesh Ponnuru, pretty much the entire National Review crowd accepts this as a good thing, as do the neo-cons over at the Weekly Standard, as well as Jane Austin conservatives like Peggy Noonan, who hangs at the Wall Street Journal, and David Brooks and Ross Douthat, both at the New York Times.
But not all the conservative economic elite are on board with this. It was the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, way back in 2002, who started sneering at those “lucky duckies” who were so goddamn lazy (or stupid) that they paid no federal income tax, a complaint that the Journal “simplified” to the notion that there were untold millions running around the country who paid no taxes at all. “As fewer and fewer people are responsible for paying more and more of all taxes, the constituency for tax cutting, much less for tax reform, is eroding. Workers who pay little or no taxes can hardly be expected to care about tax relief for everybody else. They are also that much more detached from recognizing the costs of government.”
During the triumphalism that surrounded Bush’s re-election in 2004, most conservatives weren’t too worried about those lucky duckies. We were kicking ass abroad and at home! But, alas, it all fell apart so quickly! Bush’s neo-imperialist foreign policy became an open wound at which Republicans did not wish to look. Immigration soon became a bitterly contentious issue, and, for the first time, Main Street Republicans openly defied and then defeated Wall Street. The base was in open revolt, a revolt that exploded after the Wall Street bailout. The base needed a whipping boy, and in the 47 percent they’ve found one they like.
Radio talking heads like Rush Limbaugh have decided that this issue is one that separates the sheep from the goats, which is their stock in trade. Talking heads at the American Enterprise Institute, also eager for a culture war, have signed on as well. Paul Ryan,* whom I find stunningly ordinary but, remarkably, most conservative “thinkers” seem to find stunning period, has been pushing the same line, with his “tipping point” talk, even though, of course, he voted for all of Bush’s compassionate conservative legislation, which created the “problem” he now denounces—basically the story of Paul’s life. With half of the Republican opinion-makers saying that this is argument they shouldn’t be having, and the other half saying it’s Armageddon, I’ll be glad to bring my own popcorn.
Afterwords
Over at “Next New Deal,” Mike Convzal gives a nice history of the 47 percent conspiracy and how it grew.
*Ryan called Romney’s Boca rap “inarticulate,” even though it stated quite articulately, if impoliticly, exactly what Ryan himself has been saying. The fact that an empty suit like Ryan can be hailed as a savior by people like Bill Kristol is highly entertaining to old liberals like me. I guess if you’re young and pretty, you can sell anything, even ignorance. (Kristol’s man-crush on Ryan particularly amusing because Ryan has absolutely no thoughts at all on foreign policy. Which proves, I guess, that Bill likes ‘em dumb. Is Paul cuter than Palin? Maybe!)
