The snake oil slump
GOP tax cuts aren’t selling with voters like they used to
AGOP presidential candidate loses the popular vote but ends up in the White House. Despite his dubious legitimacy, his allies in Congress ram through a huge tax cut that blows up the budget deficit while benefiting mostly the wealthy. The tax bill does throw crumbs at the middle class, though, and Republicans try to sell it as a boon to working families.
So far this account applies equally to George W. Bush and Donald Trump. But the Bush sales job was effective: While the 2001 tax cut wasn’t overwhelmingly popular, more people approved than disapproved, and it gave the GOP a modest political boost. The Trump tax cut was unpopular from the start — in fact, less popular than some past tax increases. Most Americans say they don’t see any positive effect on their paychecks. And Republicans have pretty much stopped even mentioning the bill on the campaign trail.
Why doesn’t snake oil sell like it used to?
Deficit hypocrisy has been an important weapon in the GOP political arsenal. Both parties talk about fiscal responsibility, but only Democrats practice it, actually paying for policy initiatives like Obamacare. Yet Democrats have been punished — remember “they’re taking $500 billion from Medicare”? — while Republicans have seemingly paid no price for their cynicism. Voters have focused on the extra money in their pockets, ignoring the long-run consequences of big tax cuts for the rich. So why is this time different?
Messrs. Bush and Trump both pushed through big tax cuts for the rich, but the political background is different. For one thing, in 2000 the U.S. had a budget surplus and debt had been falling relative to GDP, making concerns about long-run fiscal impacts seem remote.
By contrast, the U.S. ran large deficits in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, and the people who yelled loudest about an imminent debt crisis were the same people who pushed through a $1.5 trillion tax cut this year.
At least some voters seem to have noticed, and even have made the connection between tax cuts and Republican attempts to undermine Medicare and Medicaid. A couple of Trump-specific issues likely are involved, too.
Mr. Bush ran on his tax cuts from the beginning. Mr. Trump pretended to be a populist — even claiming that he would raise taxes on the rich — and waited until taking office to reveal himself as just another reverseRobin Hood Republican. This has created some credibility problems.
Also, while the Bush administration was deceptive in making its case for tax cuts, it usually misled rather than lied. Mr. Trump and his officials just lie, blatantly. Again, some voters have noticed.
One thing I suspect is registering with voters is the ludicrous optimism of Mr. Trump’s economic promises. Republican claims about the benefits of tax cuts aren’t just out of line with experience and independent analyzes, they’re so far out of the ballpark as to be in a different universe.
The bottom line is that tax cuts just don’t sell like they used to. And so, what else do Republicans have to run on?
Well, other issues aren’t what they used to be, either.
Claims to be the defenders of family values have lost their punch because the public has become far more socially tolerant — Americans now support same-sex marriage by a two-to-one majority! — but also because the president may be the worst family man in America. Flag-waving claims to be more patriotic than Democrats worked well for Messrs. Reagan and Bush, but are much more problematic for a GOP that looks more and more like the party of Putin.
Still, Republicans needn’t despair. They’ll always have racism to fall back on. And with the tax cut fizzling, I predict that we’ll be seeing a lot of implicit — even explicit — appeals to racism in the months ahead.