“Political Realignment, Class Warfare and Regressive Costs” Sydney Williams
http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com
The single biggest change in politics in my lifetime has been the reorientation of the political parties. Historically, Democrats represented the working classes, while Republicans had the backing of the monied classes on Wall Street and the occupiers of office suites in big businesses. Labor versus capital was a simplified definition.
Things have changed. Roles have been reversed. My State of Connecticut is a proxy for wealthy blue states. It is the 5th wealthiest in terms of income and was solidly Republican when I was growing up. This year, it voted 59% for Joe Biden. The three towns in which I have lived for the past fifty years, Greenwich, Old Lyme and Essex – all in the top 12% of Connecticut’s wealthiest towns – voted between 61% and 63% for Joe Biden. November’s vote was not a one-time event. All five House members are Democrats. Connecticut’s two U.S. Senators are ranked eight (Richard Blumenthal) and sixteen (Chris Murphy) in terms of most progressive. The last Republican to serve in the House of Representatives was Chris Shays who lost re-election in 2008. The last Republican U.S. Senator from Connecticut was Lowell Weicker, who lost re-election in 1988. This Democratic Party is not your grandfather’s Party. It has become the Party of the establishment. The only two counties in Connecticut to vote for Donald Trump were Windham and Litchfield, the two most rural counties. In both counties, his margin of victory was four percentage points. Sixty years ago, Connecticut was as solidly Republican as it is solidly Democratic today.
Why has this happened? The shift took place during the 1960s and 1970s, during a period when I became registered as a Democrat. For me, in my late 20s, it was a combination of civil rights and Vietnam, and a feeling that whatever my parents were for I should be against. By the mid 1970s, when markets and the economy turned down, I realized my parents may have been smarter than I had thought – that to succeed financially, intellectually, personally and emotionally, one had to be aspirant, have a positive outlook, be self-reliant and willing to work hard.
Throughout most of the 1980s, living in Connecticut was like living in Switzerland for those working in New York. There was no income tax, and property taxes were relatively low. It is a beautiful state, with 253 miles of shoreline and the largest river in New England, the Connecticut, which flows into Long Island Sound between Old Saybrook and Old Lyme. Roughly 130,000 acres of the state’s farm and woodland are under conservation. It is conveniently situated between New York and Boston. But Democrat control has left a dismal record of fiscal irresponsibility. Today, it is 5th in terms of debt as a percent of GDP, 4th in terms of local and state debt per capita, 4th in terms of unfunded pension liabilities, 3rd in terms of wealth inequality and 2nd in terms of combined sales and income taxes. Not surprisingly, Connecticut was one of ten states to lose population over the past ten years. Like other high-taxed states, the loss was due to people moving to other states, not because deaths outnumbered births.
As the state became more Progressive, its policies and taxes became more regressive. The State’s income tax is, admittedly, on a sliding scale. However, complication in the tax code is a boon to accountants and tax lawyers; they are hired by the wealthy and thrive in this environment. Surely, it is not coincidental that Connecticut ranks 4th in terms of lawyers per capita. A flat tax, with no deductions, would be the simplest and most progressive, but lobbyists for lawyers and accountants will never let that happen. Other taxes, like sales, gasoline and property are regressive, in that they consume a larger percentage of the income from low earners than high earners. The lottery, casinos and sports betting (something Connecticut is considering) appeal to the less wealthy, as visions of unearned riches parade before them. Green energy sounds like a good idea, but keep in mind who bears the cost. Connecticut ranks 3rd in terms of cost of energy, measured in cents per kilowatt hour. While the United States has witnessed a natural gas bonanza because of fracking and horizontal drilling, and natural gas prices have declined from $5.00 in December 2010 to $2.89 in November 2020, Connecticut homeowners’ electricity costs are almost double what they were ten years ago. Once batteries are capable of storing energy for months, solar may make sense. But the wind farm Connecticut is constructing in Long Island Sound will, in my opinion, prove to be an environmental disaster, with construction of the turbines damaging the seabed and the inevitable killing of birds who live on and migrate through the Sound. And where is nuclear?
Excessive regulations benefit big businesses, as they limit competition from minority-owned smaller companies and start-ups, as Walter Williams pointed out in his 1982 book, The State Against Blacks, quoted in the rubric. But the truth is their effect is regressive on all small businesses and budding entrepreneurs. Reactions to COVID-19 show how distanced progressives have become from lower income people. In a case of “Big Brother knows best,” lockdowns, which hurt the most economically vulnerable, are enacted by officials and supported by the media who are less at risk of losing their jobs. Elites in business, government, entertainment, the media and the academy have lost their sense of what it was like to start out.
Even education has suffered under progressive leadership. Increased spending per student has not generated the results expected. Governor Ned Lamont recently boasted that Connecticut’s K-12 schools ranked third in the country. What he did not mention were the reading and math proficiency scores for fourth and eighth graders, as measured by the National Assessment and Educational Process. In both areas, proficiency for the State’s public schools were less than 50%. That this is mainly a Democratic cause can be seen in the fact that the two principal teachers’ unions give 90-95% of their political contributions to Democrats.
As the Parties realign, what strikes an observer is that class, not race or gender, is the fault line. In the 1930s through the 1960s, the Democratic Party became the preferred venue for blacks. Prior to that, they had generally voted with the “Party of Lincoln.” We are witness to another such shift – this time driven by economic class warfare. In losing the election, Trump picked up support from minorities, women and the LGBTQ community. Where he lost support was among suburban white men. Arrogance and condescension emanating from Progressives do not help those who struggle to make ends meet, individuals who also value their freedom and independence. It is an example of that age-old Chinese adage: it is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish. The latter feeds him for a day, the former for a lifetime. Today’s privileged, measured by wealth or education, do not want to upset the status quo, which they find in the Democratic Party. The Republican Party has become the Party for those climbing up economic and social ladders, irrespective of race, religion or gender. It is, thus, the more radical Party, in that it recognizes the need for change, while hewing to those principles of tradition and family, which have helped previous generations become American success stories.
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