Alan B. Krueger of the New York Times just can’t understand why it is that poor and middle-income voters keep supporting tax cuts that mostly benefit the rich. By way of explanation, he cites research by Larry Bartels of Princeton that says that tax cuts are broadly supported because these voters “thought they, too, would benefit, if only by a small amount, and because they failed to connect the tax cuts to rising inequality, their future tax burden, or the availability of government services.” Underlying his analysis is the assumption that “poor,” “middle class,” and “rich” are fixed class categories and that they are in conflict with each other, that the poor always and everywhere resent the rich and would rationally want to kick them around. He doesn’t consider that perhaps the middle class might still have reason to support lower marginal rates on higher incomes because members of the poor and middle classes might believe that someday they will be earning higher income and might have to pay these taxes. Also, why assume that the poor and middle class are too stupid to understand that taxing the rich is bad for everyone? In the specific case of Alabama, Krueger is just wrong. He says that the failed tax program of the (Republican) governor “clearly would have benefited” low-income families. But he doesn’t mention that the tax package, as Chris Westley shows, dramatically increased the sales tax and applied a huge range of special taxes on services provided mostly by the working class. Finally, nowhere does Krueger mention the ideological element: supporting tax cuts reflects anti-government sentiment. The poor and middle class may be no more interested in becoming dependent on “government services” than anyone else.
