JONATHAN CHAIT FEBRUARY 22, 2010
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Daniel Larison flags a Pew Survey showing that the Republican party's recent gains have come overwhelmingly among the elderly. Specifically, since 2006, Baby boomers, Generation X and Millenials have all moved 5-6 percentage points away from the Democratic Party and toward the GOP when asked which party in Congress they intend to vote for. (Though all those groups still, on the aggregate, plan to vote Democratic over Republican.) The oldest cohort, the "Silent Generation," has shown a staggering 17 point shift toward the GOP.
This seems to suggest that Republicans have successfully stoked fears of fears of "redistribution of health" -- cutting expenditures on Medicare and shifting resources toward the uninsured. (Lamar Alexander: "[D]on't cut grandma's Medicare and spend it on some new program. If you can find some savings in the waste, fraud, and abuse of grandma's Medicare, spend it on grandma.") It also explains why President Obama's health care proposal now completely fills in the Medicare "doughnut hole." The Democrats need most of all some deliverable to show to the elderly.
Ross Douthat comments:
But where the size of government — and if we ever want to cut the deficit, the burden of taxation — is concerned, they’ll be the whole ballgame soon enough. And if the Republican Party depends too heavily on over-65 voters for its political viability, we could easily end up with a straightforwardly big-government party in the Democrats, and a G.O.P. that wins election by being “small government” on the small stuff (earmarks, etc.) while refusing to even consider entitlement reform. That’s a recipe for one of two things: Either the highest taxes in American history and a federal government that climbs inexorably toward 30 percent of G.D.P., or a Greece or California-style disaster.
Well, there is a third option. Republicans could realize that 1) the future of conservatism depends upon restraining entitlement spending, 2) They'll never restrain entitlement spending without Democratic cover, and 3) Democrats won't give them cover unless they give some substantive ground. That would entail opening themselves up to a deal covering the uninsured in return for really tough spending controls, an even bigger Cadillac tax, comparative effectiveness research, and other delivery reforms. It would also mean seeking out a bipartisan deal to trim Social Security while raising taxes a bit -- the kind of deal Obama is all but begging for.
Of course this would require the party to abandon its theological opposition to tax hikes, whereas that theology has only deepened its hold on the party. So instead we're stuck in an equilibrium that's not terribly liberal but also headed inexorably toward much larger government.
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5 comments
To be honest, I do think Republicans would be willing to do all those things, it is just that it is they who want to be calling the shots from the White House, Speakers office, and Senate majority leaders office. And, of course, they will only be willing to do this when the economy is on complete meltdown, like Bush did when he joined with Democrats over TARP. The Democrats shouldn't have signed off on it without major financial regulation though, and if Bush balked the whole system would have collapsed. Given Bush's deer dazed in the headlights look, I think he would have rolled over.
- blackton
February 22, 2010 at 5:26pm
Blackton, the Democrats have an opportunity (or at least had it) when Obama was elected to get financial reform. And he would have signed such legislation. They didn't. What makes you think they would have held out to go against one of their biggest sources of money when the system was melting down?
- tnmats
February 22, 2010 at 5:48pm
tnmats, right, why this wasn't on Obama's 100 day to do list is beyond me, and for that matter, why the hell the Democrats didn't spend all of December and January of 2009 getting a health care bill worked out is another. But when the system was melting down, there was no money to be found anywhere. The markets were frozen, the Democrats wouldn't have needed to raise any money if that continued (although they were raising tons in small donations). The simple fact is Will Rogers was right when he said he didn't belong to any organized political party; he was a Democrat.
- blackton
February 22, 2010 at 6:02pm
It's a good article, but I think it overlooks social issues as one reason old people don't like Obama and the Dems. A black prez is just a bridge too far for some old people and they are easily the least friendly towards gay rights and gay marriage. Young Republicans are more friendly to gay marriage than old people.
- DC Spence
February 23, 2010 at 9:17am
The Silent Generation were also the mainstay of the tax revolt movement in the late 70s and early 80s. Unlike the generations before and after them, they've had rather charmed economic lives. In their youth, they benefitted from progressive taxation which provided them with the benefit of a negliable tax burden AND massive federal investment in material, social and cultural infrastructure, technological and scientific research, etc., etc. (paid for by their elders) that allowed them to become, in their peak earning years, the wealthiest generation in all of history. But, in their peak earning years, when their tax bill came due, frightened by inflation, they voted themselves huge tax breaks and refused to pay support similar investments to help the next generation create wealth. They are use to always getting something for nothing, and have long demonstrated their fear of, and refusal to, contribute to the well-being of younger generations and the nation as a whole.
- esmense
February 23, 2010 at 12:43pm