Voters vs Donaters
Why the Republican party is unable to make budgets or policy and why America needs more taxes.
Republicans have had months to come up with a counter budget. During that time they have made many claims about the Democrats “reckless” spending, but have yet to back up their own position of reigning in the government.
The closest they’ve come is a rough proposal by the Freedom Caucus that outlined extreme slashes to every aspect of government outside of Defense spending, which they want to increase.
Despite this proposal, no actual budget has been written up by the GOP. The reason? They can’t come up with a budget they can support.
Republicans have found themselves in a tough spot. Their position continues to be one of smaller government, anti-welfare, anti-government healthcare, even anti-social security.
This reflects their donors which are the wealthy and corporations. But it goes against the majority of their constituents.
Decades ago, Republican voters were more wealthy and aligned with the party platform. Over time there has been a shift.
Upper class, college educated people are largely now Democrat voters who back social reform and welfare programs. Whereas Republican voters are less wealthy, less educated, and are the main receivers of those welfare programs.
If the MAGA Freedom Caucus actually put their budget up for a vote, it would fail from not having enough Republican support.
The Republicans in tougher districts can’t afford to alienate their constituents in that way. McCarthy knows this, which is why he hasn’t presented a budget, only rhetoric.
This is the odd dichotomy Republicans have been in for a while. It is also why Democrats out fundraise them with small donors by a significant margin.
This problem is so great that Republicans have started looking for GOP candidates that can fully fund their own campaigns in order to have enough resources to properly compete.
The real solution to the current budget is more taxes.
Wages in the lower and middle class haven’t kept up over the years, and the current inflation has made their lives even more difficult.
Those new taxes have to come from the wealthy and corporations. Republican voters show large support for taxing the wealthy just as Democrats do, but again, those are the Republicans main donors.
This is also in large part why Republicans are engaging in a culture war instead of discussing policies.
They are in a tricky spot where if they propose policies that would support their voting base, then they’d sound a lot like the Democrats that they’ve vilified over those same positions.
Republicans have painted themselves in a corner that is hard to get out of, especially when MAGA politicians have such outsized power in The House.
McCarthy would end up in the same situation that got John Boehner removed from the speaker position. Boehner worked with Obama on finding agreement on the Affordable Care Act, which is currently used by more Republicans than Democrats, but the hardline Tea Party didn’t like that he was willing to back such a policy.
Let’s look at why taxes are the right solution.
America is projected to bring in $4.8 trillion for government revenue in 2023, but costs are expected to be closer to $6 trillion, giving us a deficit of $1.2 trillion.
Interest on federal debt: $640 billion
Social Security: $1.3 trillion
Medicare: $846 billion
Medicaid: $536 billion
Interest can’t be cut, that is similar to a monthly mortgage payment. If America doesn’t pay it, we default, our credit rating drops, and our economy suffers.
Cutting Social Security doesn’t help as that is self funded. Which is why you have a separate deduction for it on your paycheck. It was also what all politicians agreed not to cut, along with Medicare and Medicaid during the State of the Union address (and why Biden had such a grin when they did so).
That brings the total up to $3.322 trillion already with no possible cuts.
Military: $860 billion
We have the highest military budget in the world by a wide margin, and have the most military allies, making this an area we could cut back on but Republicans don’t want cuts, they want to increase the military budget.
A total of $4.182 trillion
Income security: 2022 cost was $865 billion.
This includes retirement funds (both federal and military), disability, unemployment benefits, housing assistance, and nutrition assistance.
This category is expected to be lower in 2023 now that Covid programs are over. There aren’t many clear ways to make cuts in this category, though one target for Republicans is SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
SNAP helps needy families afford food. This program is expected to cost $140 billion in 2023, then decrease in 2024 as the economy improves.
Democrats are currently against cuts to this program due to the positive effects it has on children, infant birth weight, pregnant mothers and more.
Research shows the benefits of this program outweighs the cost. Even if we cut SNAP entirely to $0, it would hardly dent our budget or our deficit.
Remaining categories are:
Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services: $677 billion in 2022.
Veterans Benefits and Services: $274 billion in 2022.
Transportation: $123 billion in 2022
General Government: $129 billion in 2022
Other: $65 billion in 2022
The Freedom Caucus has suggested cuts to Veterans Benefits which is surprising given they want to expand the military while seemingly wanting to help veterans less.
They’ve also suggested cuts to Transportation which is poor timing after major train derailments and significant airline cancellations and delays from outdated technology just these past few months.
When we look at that list, there simply isn’t much to cut and nowhere near enough to cut to cover the deficit.
That is why we need more taxes.
Looking at that chart you can see how low the US tax rate is when looking at other comparable nations.
In a lot of those high tax countries, people have no issue with their taxes. The reason is they can see those taxes work for them through government services such as healthcare, public transit, even family support including care packages for new babies. Conversely, military budgets are far lower in those nations.
What you see is nations where people pay a lot into the system and get a lot out of it. In America it tends to feel like the opposite.
And that is exactly what the Democrats are trying to solve by creating new taxes on individuals making $400,000 or more a year only.
At the end of the day, America simply needs more tax revenue and it needs those taxes to be applied efficiently for its everyday working class citizens, not the rich, not the corporations.
Either Republicans accept this reality, and accept what their voting base is, or they continue to lose ground with each new election.