Why they vote Republican

Grim, posting over at Blackfive, offers an excellent explanation of why the working poor vote Republican.

This is a recurring theme with liberals, something OpinionJournal noted last week.

The Posse concurs with Grim’s findings, but we wish to add additional insight.

Put simply, Democrats hate small businesses and prefer massive conglomerates.

This flies in the face of most Democratic propaganda and the sentiment of a good many Democrats who style themselves the champions of the less well off.

The fact remains, however, that Democratic policies are built under the assumption that most workers toil away in massive, brick-built factories for monolithic corporate entities that have no real competition.

That isn’t so, and hasn’t been the case for a long while, but the Dems still live in the past.

Democrats believe that any burdens assessed on companies are only fair, and regularly raid corporate coffers in the name of “fairness.”  A classic example of this was John Kerry whining about “Benedict Arnold CEOs” during the campaign.

Kerry, like most Democrats, objected to companies moving operations and assets off shore to avoid high taxes.  His solution was to vilify and punish the companies – something most Democrats would like to do.

Republicans understand that the problem isn’t companies going overseas to escape high taxes – it is the high taxes themselves.  They also understand that while GM and IBM can open up subsidiary plants overseas, Ma and Pa Podinsky at the corner Deli can’t.  They get hammered every time the Dems turn the screws on the big guys.

Thus we come to the irony at the core of Democrat economic policies:  They place so many burdens on businesses that only large employers can absorb the costs and still expect to thrive.

But competition has changed things.  The megacorps are no longer guaranteed market share.  So they trim costs wherever they can – often leaving high-tax areas or shedding workers they simply can’t afford to pay.

When Dems see this, they are spurred to action and will often offer incentives – “targeted tax cuts” and the like.  Or, to put it another way, tax cuts for the rich.

Indeed, one of the ironies about Democrat class warfare is how hollow it rings.  Dems fall over themselves trying to keep auto plants open, waiving taxes right and left so long as GM or Ford promise to keep the doors open.

But what relief can small employers expect to get?  When a mom and pop store is threatened with going under, what tax breaks will they get?

This is why so many small business owners vote Republican and reject class warfare.  No matter how you spin it, all those regulations add up and anyone whose ever tried to fill out a city, state, and federal tax return knows it.

The hairdresser Grim spoke of knows the costs of doing business.  When she buys a tanning booth, she’ll figure out pretty quickly that it isn’t just a one-time expense.  It is now an asset, something that can be taxed again and again if the local potentates so desire it.

Democrats rarely like to acknowledge the burden placed on businesses, but they are real and they weigh heavily on those that pay them.

Thus when Democrats speak of “voting against one’s economic interests,” they are often dead wrong – and many of these people have the balance books to prove it.

Comments

[Dwilkers]

I can't tell you how many comments on lefty blogs I've seen along the lines of "they're just too stupid to vote in their own best interests".

You know what gets me about this line of talk from the left? I have never walked into a voting both, picked up the stylus and thought "ok, what's in it for me" before I voted. Its just not how I think when I vote and somehow I don't think I'm alone. Rather, I tend to vote for the ideas and poilicies that inspire me or seem the best for our country.

It seems though that people on the left go into the booth with a careful calculation of what's best for them from a narrow personal perspective, or that they think that's what people SHOULD do.