Agreed. The top 10% got one hel of a lot more than 10% of the actual cash from Bush's tax breaks. It would be nice if such breaks could be tailored to where they would actually do most good, wouldn't it?

Regards, C

Let's throw in one more option for Prof. Bainbridge's homework.

Give $5 million to small businesses for investment in capital equipment creating jobs and stimulating other sectors of the economy. Heck, give those jobs to very same poor people already mentioned.

It's good to remember not all tax cuts go to heiresses worth $500 million.

Those who are "economically rational" realize it may be better to let the government take a few percentage points of a bigger pie than have the whole of a smaller pie to themselves. That way, the folks at the bottom of the heap get some assistance with their costs of living and the money flows uphill generating a cascade of economic activity as it does so. Welcome to Gordon Brown's ethical economics.

Regards, Cernig

The point is each individual race must be analyzed to determine why they turned out as they did. To claim results in individual districts were part of an overall mood is convenient but not accurate.

Weak Republican candidates hurt as much as anything else. Sorry, weak Republican candidates and strong Democratic candidates with centrist positions. This was not a monumental swing in the country's mood but a slight shift that yielded great benefits for the Democratic party.

I do not understand why you assume it is to a wealthy persons self interest to vote republican.

Lip service, pure and simple. The GOP platform is all about capitalism, small/non-interfering/business-friendly gov't, lower taxes, free trade, etc. That stuff sounds great at a fundraiser. But it wasn't actually happening in reality (cursed reality! it hates America!), so even a lot of usually-safe Repub supporters stopped buying the BS.

I don’t believe voters looked at anything beyond who was running in their particular district and what that candidate’s positions were. All politics is local and the voters looked only as far their own ballot

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While I am a big proponent of this philosophy, I have also heard a surprising number of anectdotal "I've never voted straight Dem before" stories, both in the news & from friends (including my wife!) - I'm not so sure that rule applies in this particular election.

We shouldn’t give voters that much credit to assume they would even know how to vote their economic interests. Sad but true.

Agreed, from my earlier statement on lip service - voters like what they hear, but rarely ever connect campaign promises to actions...

And that's why Chafee lost?

Most of the working professionals I know, say with incomes in the 150-250k range are not so enamored with Bush or his tax cuts.

An income of 150k is certainly not "wealthy" here in the Bay Area. When you look at surging costs for energy, health care, telecom, etc. under Bush... well I would go back to the days of the Clinton economy with pleasure.

Triumph,

The urban areas are also where most government employees and contractors working for the government live. No surprise that they vote for those who promise to expand their career opportunities by expanding government.

I am not sure about the veracity of this. There are only 2.6 million Federal governmental employed nation-wide. Outside of the District of Columbia--which didn't figure into last week's election--the state that has the highest number of federal employees per capita is Alaska--probably one of the most consistently Republican states, and least urban, in the union.

Actually, I suspect that the blue-shifted voters figured they could have their cake and eat it too.

Actually I suspect they were just sick of Iraq and corruption. Just like they said they were.

The urban areas are also where most government employees and contractors working for the government live. No surprise that they vote for those who promise to expand their career opportunities by expanding government.

A lot of us have been democratic all along. And we know precisely where our economic interests lie. We understand perfectly well that there isn't any such thing as the free lunch y'all keep pushing in the form of supply side economics and that eventually it's our children who have to pay the credit tab y'all keep running up whenever you get into office.

I doubt any Dems ran on promises to raise taxes or increase regulations. More likely they ran against the way the war is being handled and corruption in Washington. Those were the issues before the voters with other concerns left behind. Even if Republicans brought up the spectre of Democratic tax and spend policies it seemed more like negative campaigning (not to mention the dismal record of Republicans on spending).

We shouldn't give voters that much credit to assume they would even know how to vote their economic interests. Sad but true.

Actually, I suspect that the blue-shifted voters figured they could have their cake and eat it too.

It has more to do with education. People with higher levels of education tend to vote more Democratic and they also tend to earn more.

The urban issue is also at play. The centers of finance, economic development, culture, and innovation are all in urban places where the closed-mindedness and irrational decisionmaking that has marked Bush and the Republicans' performance is considered highly problematic.

The places where Republicans tend to do well are in areas of the country with lower-middle class incomes and higher levels of church attendance--indicative of lower appreciation for rationality.

If you look at the record since WW II real GDP growth has averaged some 4% under democrats but only 3.8% under republicans -- it use to be 3% but Bush pulled the average down.

From WW II until George Bush took office the average annual total return of the S&P 500 was 15.7% under Democrats and 10.6% under Republicans. Of course if you had gone into cash in January 2001 when Bush took office your portfolio would now be up 15.4% versus 11.2% for the S&P 500 with daily dividend reinvestment.
So even though I have not done the numbers Bush will also pull this republican average down.

The recent more rapid growth in income of the top 1% of the income spectrum would argue in favor of voting Republican, but over the long run the after tax income of the top 20% of the income spectrum was the same under democrats and republicans -- it is much better for all other income groups under democrats. Moreover, the top 1% of income was growing more rapidly in the 1990s so it does not appear to be a product of republican policy.

Even the old small business fear of democrats imposing more regulations has proven incorrect. I'm sure you remember the old Milton Freedman op-ed in the WSJ about using the number of pages in the federal registry as a measure of the federal government interfering with the economy and limiting freedom. Under Bush the number of pages in the Federal Resister has averaged 4.5% more then it did under Clinton.

I've never found any significant economic measure that has performed better under Republican then Democrats but I'm sure you can show me some to demonstrate why it is to anyone's self interest to vote republican.