Simply Politics & News

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Voters' Belief in Fairness Will Toss Republicans from Office
"They passed a tax cut, but it isn't going to save them".

"But it's hard to convince people that you just changed their lives for the better with a tax cut if they aren't seeing the rewards—and they know who is. According to a new report from the Tax Policy Center, people in the lowest income quintile will average a $40 tax cut from the law, or $1.54 per two-week pay period, just like Paul Ryan's lucky secretary. Those in the middle quintile will average $800, or about $30 per paycheck. And those in the top 1 percent? Their average cut is almost $33,000.

Which is about what everyone expects from a Republican tax plan. And when you play right into people's expectations, it doesn't take much to convince them that you have in fact done exactly what they expected you to.

That's not to mention the fact that if they were looking to win people's approval for a change to the tax system, they would have done exactly the opposite of what they did. For years, polls have consistently found that what bothered people the most isn't the amount they have to pay in taxes, even if everyone might like to pay less. The chief complaint voters have long had is that the corporations and the wealthy don't pay their fair share. So Republicans lowered taxes on corporations and the wealthy, making the system even less fair than it was before.

They were always going to face a fundamental problem in this year's elections: Especially in midterms, anger at politicians is a much stronger motivation than approval of what they've done with their time in power. But if they were going to pick one thing to run on, this tax bill shouldn't have been it. Of course, they did it because cutting taxes is the one thing they believe most fervently in, and no matter what else they failed to achieve, they were going to get that bill through. It may mean they lose their congressional majorities, though—and there's nothing unfair about that".

http://prospect.org/article/voters-belief-fairness-will-toss-republicans-office