I think William McGurn puts little too much stress on the whole Obama “Life of Julia” slideshow, but he does raise the perfectly reasonable question of why so many middle-class Americans decided that Obama had their back while Romney was indifferent at best. Let’s take a look at how the postelection Republican rethink is going. One Republican tax proposal is pretty complicated, but it looks like it would create a “tax bubble.” People earning from between $250,000 and $400,000 would pay a greater than 40% marginal income tax rate on money earned between $250,000 and $400,000. But any money earned over $400,000 would be taxed at a lower 35% tax rate. This doesn’t concern Julia (or most of the rest of us) directly, but why would you construct at tax code in which the highest earners pay a lower marginal income tax rate than the somewhat less wealthy?
Then there is the support of many Republicans for a “guest worker” program. There is just so much wrong here. A guest worker program is contrary to how most Americans (of all ethnicities) think a reformed immigration system should operate. Most Americans would prefer to move American immigration policy in the direction of higher skill, higher education immigrants. Guest worker programs also take exactly the wrong approach to immigration apart from the immigrant’s education or skill level. We should be welcoming future American citizens, not importing a laboring class that is formally barred from citizenship. A “guest worker” class is also absurd in the medium-to-long-term since we are a country with constitutionally-granted birthright citizenship. A simple increase in permanent resident worker visas would be both more politically transparent and more socially healthy. Guest worker programs only make sense if every other policy priority is subordinated to the goal of importing low wage labor under conditions that maximize employer leverage in the short-term.
So what might Julia (or Jules, or just somebody reading the paper) think of all this? It might look to Julia that the Republicans concluded from their election defeat that they should become even more obnoxiously the party of high earners “job creators.” Maybe Republicans could spend more of their time on the legitimate public policy concerns that Julia has and focus on conservative policy solutions that would make it cheaper and easier for her to get an education, make it easier for Julia and her spouse to raise their children through a more family friendly tax code, and reform the health insurance system so that Julia and her family have more take home pay while retaining access to high quality health care. As Ramesh Ponnuru wrote today, as long as Republicans lack a policy agenda that speaks directly to the concerns of the middle and working-classes (as distinct from the alleged indirect benefits of cutting taxes on high earners), Republican candidates are going to continue to have tough election nights unless circumstances are overwhelmingly favorable. I’d also add that the more a Republican economic message of “cut tax rates on high earner job creators who built that” fails, the more some will be inclined to blame pro-lifers for the party’s woes.
November 27th, 2012 | 8:34 pm
“Most Americans would prefer to move American immigration policy in the direction of higher skill, higher education immigrants.”
I’ve never understood this at all. This is not the sort of folks who built America. Give me the hardest working, most self-sufficient and driven immigrants, NOT the ones with the fanciest credentials. But then, the last five years or so have shown me time and time again that I’m radically out of step with the times…
November 28th, 2012 | 1:37 pm
I’m with Brian. All my ancestors were European peasants when they came to this country, and were blessed by the American dream. Seems unfitting to limit that dream to a small range of professionals.
November 28th, 2012 | 1:59 pm
Good article. We wrote something similar on our blog at ConservativeIsland.com on why Romney lost the election, and where the Republicans should go from here. There are definite changes that need to be made.
November 28th, 2012 | 3:40 pm
Well Pete, Romney didn’t loose by that much running a republican campaign essentially as the head of a business lobby.
Given the levels of exageration and flights of fancy, which “opinion” copyright tends to engender, I am not suprised….But I am slightly suprised that no one did an After Action Review and concluded that at least rhetorically in terms of defending Big Business and Capital, the Romney result was a smashing sucess. Romney told some interesting truths vis a vis representation.
I think I agree in part with what you are saying. I didn’t vote for Romney because I was worried about giving that kind of mandate to such a pure technocratic “Right”. Understood in this way, I am certainly an independent.
That is you don’t really absolutely know what the “Right” is thinking until you see litigation. What does the “Right” mean anyways (outside of its permutations in copyright?) Typically a business or business lobby will be on the “Right”(i.e. be a defendant) and on the “Left” there will be a (plaintiff).
Sierra Club(a fine progressive institution) vs. GE (a fine capitalist firm).
The world is a complex place, but a great deal of clarity can come from this. Also a great deal of flip flopping on appeal depending who prevails!(lol)….but seriously, did you expect a word that can’t be more sophisticated than your right or left hand to explain all of politics?(too much “left” and “right” can be like saying you can count because you have 10 fingers).
On the other hand in a contest between Obama and Romney (Romney was somewhat on the Left in so far as it amounted to a suit against the incumbent), but more importantly Romney was on the “Right” as a sort of business firm lobbying for K street. Sure it is Crony Capitalism….but what seperates my theoretical views on policy from those of Romney? Romney’s views are already enabled(a huge virtue of “Crony Capitalism”), that is Romney’s policy points on energy actually represented real projects that businesses wanted to develop, but which were held back from the “Left”, by either a State Actor (EPA)…or a progressive interest group, i.e. “Sierra Club”. Key Example: Romney wanted to build the Keystone XXL pipeline. (which as it turns out was actually on the “Right” with both of these groups on the “Left”).
November 29th, 2012 | 5:41 pm
Brian, Mrsschiavolin, there seems to be sound social science evidence that moving toward a more education and skills-based policy would be beneficial to the US http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_64.htm
John, at last count (that I checked), Romney was losing the popular vote by 3.4% and only won two states that McCain lost under the most adverse circumstances a Republican has seen in over forty years.
“But I am slightly suprised that no one did an After Action Review and concluded that at least rhetorically in terms of defending Big Business and Capital”
Yuu’re probably pretty much alone in that.
November 30th, 2012 | 9:50 am
[...] Memo From Julia – Pete Spiliakos, PoMoCon [...]
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