Sometimes I wonder if members of Congress spend too much time out-thinking themselves - political twists within themselves and blocs determined by political games within political games, thinking that come re-election time they will be rewarded for these efforts/games etc.
But the theory of Congressional Stagnation tells us that most voters aren't really paying attention anyways, and, short of getting caught dating a Cub Scout, the odds that you will be re-elected in your district are incredibly high. Which means you probably don't necessarily need to do political grandstanding and gamesmanship-filled filibustering to keep your job. You can probably support things you think are actually good policy and make sense, without having to stoop to make yourself look like a clueless idiot/complete jackass for the party line, and still get re-elected with little to no worry.
As in politicians seem to think we're all Josh Lyman, keeping political scores every minute of the day. For fuck's sake. And when I saw Yglesias' post earlier today HERE, it made me think the the same idea applies to taxes.
But stepping beyond this, why on earth would anyone believe that Ricardian equivalence holds? The theory is that a tax cut today can’t boost spending tomorrow because people will know that taxes will have to rise in the future.
This shit drives me bananas - who actually believes people are that cognisant of tax rates as salaries go up? Do any 5 people you know have any idea about how income tax rates really work? Have you ever turned down a raise cause you'd hafta pay more taxes? People wanna make as much money as they possibly can - yeah they'll bitch about paying more in taxes, but that's just human nature - nobody loves paying taxes. But do you know anybody who said "$250k? Nah. I'll stick with making $30k; I don't wanna pay more taxes"?
Of course the best example is Joe the Dumber - famous soley because he was so worried about what his taxes would be if for some reason his income all of a sudden leapt by about 500%, Joe certainly didn't hesitate to go sprinting to a new career as Batshit Right Mascot for a shitload of more dough, did he? He's surely in the very tax bracket he was so worried about last year, and to him it's even worth going to Israel for a spell to get even MORE taxable cash.
As I've bitched about it on this blog a million times, a lot of people vote according to stupid shit like how much in taxes they'll hafta pay if they win the fucking lottery. But while they foolishly VOTE that way, they don't LIVE that way.
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