The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has a feature they call the "Saturday Spin", in which David Horsey, their editorial cartoonist, asks a question and asks for responses from the readers. The most recent question was about tax cuts. As you can see from the responses, Seattleites are firmly against tax cuts of any type. As of 1:45 PM, there was only one response (out of eight) that supported a tax cut of any sort; all the others condemned the Republicans, the rich, the Bush administration ("blood-money" tax cuts is a giveaway on that one), and so forth. There is even a slam against Democratic governor Gary Locke, who has refused to implement a state income tax.
If you continue on to the additional responses, you will find seven more who rail against the tax cuts, and one more in support. Apparently, the P-I's readers are split 7 to 1 against tax cuts. One of these additional responses is priceless:
It's not that I am getting back $400 of my money. It's that Dick Cheney is getting back $104,000 of our grandchildren's money.
No, it's not your grandchildren's money. It's Dick Cheney's, and your argument underlies your blindly socialist patois of class warfare. Dick Cheney made the money, and you apparently feel that he doesn't have any right to it. While that point of view is fashionable here in Seattle, it doesn't fly elsewhere.
It's highly unlikely that anyone who voted for the tax cut will lose their seat; legislators who support massive tax increases, on the other hand, are sometimes voted out of office. Ask Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky. Page thirteen of this .pdf file has a nice breakdown of how she voted on the largest tax increase in US history; as a consequence of her actions, she was voted out of office by her constituents at the first opportunity. Only in places like Seattle (where representative for life "Baghdad Jim" McDermott can safely vote for tax increase after tax increase) are tax cuts wildly unpopular.
posted on June 14, 2003 01:51 PM
