Before you start feeling too
sanguine about the Democrats’ chances in the 2018 midterm elections, I am here
to ruin your day: Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that groups affiliated
with and funded by the Koch brothers are slated to spend $20 million to sell
last year’s class war tax plan to voters.
Most of that money will go to
television ads—the group has already run more than 4,460 TV spots this year in
Indiana, attacking the Democratic incumbent Senator Joe Donnelly for voting
against the tax package—but some will reportedly pay for direct, door-to-door
canvassing, complete with Koch-funded iPads for the smoothest canvassing
experience:
After each visit, AFP workers
log answers from voters to three questions: Were they aware of the tax
legislation? Do they support it? And do they think Donnelly’s vote against it
hurt Hoosiers? At unanswered doors, workers leave literature highlighting
Donnelly’s vote against the legislation and urging voters to “tell him to make
the tax relief permanent.”
Creepy shit!
This has been going on for a
while, in fact. Americans for Prosperity started canvassing about the tax package last October, before
the final bill was even passed, employing a small army of unfortunate high
school students. The New York Times reported at the time that the
group had “hit more than 41,000 homes and made 1.1 million phone calls.” With
the midterms approaching, however, the Koch groups are targeting vulnerable
Democratic senators.
It remains to be seen if this
will work. The tax cut bill was politically savvy in that it pushes all the
financial pain into the future—the tax benefits that middle and lower income
people will receive are much greater in 2018 than they will be in 2027, when
lower-income people will actually see higher taxes as millionaires and
billionaires continue to get huge cuts. By 2027, if we aren’t all dead from the
First Gamer Wars of 2024, the simple passage of time will save the GOP from
political responsibility for their mess; it won’t be so easy for Democrats in
2027 to run on opposing a GOP tax bill that was passed 10 years back.
And still, Bloomberg reports
(and polls indicate), the public isn’t totally convinced:
For Republicans hoping to
stave off Democratic victories in November’s elections, the party will have to
do a better job of selling the overhaul to the public. It won’t be easy. Tax
policy is notoriously complicated. And if the responses to Porter’s efforts on
a recent Saturday are any indication, people are skeptical. “I don’t think my
check has changed,” says Linda Meredith, a 52-year-old bartender who was among
those visited. Meredith says she supported the tax changes. Then she adds:
“They’re going to benefit the rich.”
That is correct, Linda. And,
as New York magazine’s Eric Levitz pointed out in March, there are likely a lot of Lindas out
there:
Since late January, approval
of the tax law in Monmouth University’s survey fell by three points to
41 percent – while the Democrats’ lead in the 2018 race swelled by seven, from
a mere 2 percent to 9. Meanwhile, Quinnipiac’s latest pollhas support for the tax law
declining three points to 36 percent, and opposition rising three points to 50
percent.
Another bad sign for the
Republicans: Most people say they haven’t seen a change in their
paychecks since the bill was passed. Whether or not they actually have, the
fact that they haven’t noticed a positive change will make it harder for
Republicans to claim that they’ve handed out a big fat wad of freedom dollars
to voters.
Still, this shows is the
Republican party and their billionaire backers have a very smart, very
advanced, and very expensive infrastructure in place to advocate on issues
exactly like this, and they’ll continue to do so however hard Trump owns
himself on Russia, paying off a porn star, or whatever comes next. Americans
for Prosperity has been doing this, iPads and all, for years. It has practically unlimited
money at its disposal; as long as there are billionaires who will benefit from
massive tax cuts, there will be millions to spend on trying to sell Americans
on whatever raw deal they’re hawking next.
No comments:
Post a Comment