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01 Oct 2008 08:26 pm

Conservative Caricatures

Ross fisks Tim Noah's article on the end of the GOP:

We don't have one political party (the Republicans) that wants to pretend government is the enemy while using it to subsidize the rich, and one political party (the Democrats) that wants the government to redistribute the nation's wealth to the poor and working classes. We have one party that wants low taxes and a limited welfare state whose benefits are heavily means-tested, and one party that wants high taxes, especially on the affluent, to subsidize a big welfare state in which benefits aren't really means-tested at all.

In practice, because the rich and the upper-middle class are so politically influential, we tend to end up with the most upper-income-friendly aspects of both agendas - that is, low taxes paying for a welfare state whose benefits aren't means-tested - while both parties' proposals to make the system more progressive, whether by cutting spending or increasing it, wither on the vine.

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