Interesting argument from Ed Kilgore as to why the McCain campaign keeps trumpeting the Joe the Plumber stuff even though they know the basic argument is wrong.
It's to keep a floor down ballot.
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"Spreading the Wealth Around"
Ed Kilgore
Aside from the desire to create an imaginary avatar of the White Working Class Voter threatened by Barack Obama's tax plan, there's another big reason for the Joe the Plumber obsession among Republicans right now. Conservative gabbers are convinced that Obama's "spread the wealth around" remark in his original encounter with Samuel J. Wurzelbacher was politically disastrous evidence that he wants to use tax rates to engineer a socialist "redistribution" of income.
Last week Hilzoy usefully went through the Obama/Joe the Imposter exchange and showed convincingly that Obama was talking about the macroeconomic benefits of more broadly distributed wealth, not advocating redistribution-via-the-tax-code. In terms of tax policy, I think it's abundantly clear that Obama was challenging the whole conservative premise that wealth and jobs are created strictly by investors and employers, whose marginal tax rates must be kept as low as possible, so that those middle-and-lower income freeloaders may continue to passively benefit from their munificence. This does indeed represent a sharp dividing line between progressive and conservative economic philosophies, since progressives do tend to believe that the skills and work--and for that matter, the buying power--of non-capital-holders are a very big deal for the economy. And that's the actual difference between the Obama and McCain approaches to tax policy, with Obama wanting to make income tax rates more progressive, while McCain--like all those conservative "flat tax" or "fair tax" advocates--wanting to make them less progressive.
If a majority of Americans agreed with conservatives on this fundamental issue, they would surely agree that taxes are high enough, and perhaps too high, for upper-income Americans and for corporations--you know, for the people who create all the jobs and wealth.
But if you check out the Gallup site, the most abundant source of polling on the broad outlines of tax policy, it becomes clear that the McCain-Palin campaign is really barking up the wrong tree.
As of April of this year--long before the Wall Street scandal roused particularly intense populist feelings--63% of respondents told Gallup that "upper-income people" paid too little in taxes. 9% said such people paid too much in taxes. While the term "upper-income" wasn't defined in the poll, Obama's definition--the top 5% of earners--couldn't be too far off the mark. And for the record, the "too little" figure was actually a bit higher back in the Clinton years, when the top rate was very similar to where Obama would try to put it.
Another common conservative talking point on taxes, echoed by John McCain in the final presidential debate, was that corporate taxes in the United States are too high. According to Gallup in the same April 2008 poll, 6% of Americans think corporations pay too much in taxes, while 73% think they pay too little.
But let's take this to another level. Suppose Republicans can convince people that Obama really does want to pursue a Robin Hood tax policy. Would that represent a political death sentence for the Democrat?
Here's another question posed by Gallup: Do you think our government should or should not redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich? In April of 2008, 51% of Americans answered that question "yes," while 43% said "no." Those who think of the New Deal Era as the high tide of American "socialism" might want to note that Roper asked the identical question in 1939; 35% said "yes" while 54% said "no."
So the bottom line is that under the most abrasive (and inaccurate) characterization of what Obama meant by "spreading the wealth around," he would still be reflecting a majority sentiment. Once again, the McCain-Palin campaign probably ought to be talking about something else.
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