23 Nov 2007

Democrats: the Party of the Rich

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The Washington Times wonders about the bona fides of those democrat class warriors.

Democrats like to define themselves as the party of poor and middle-income Americans, but a new study says they now represent the majority of the nation’s wealthiest congressional districts.

In a state-by-state, district-by-district comparison of wealth concentrations based on Internal Revenue Service income data, Michael Franc, vice president of government relations at the Heritage Foundation, found that the majority of the nation’s wealthiest congressional jurisdictions were represented by Democrats.

He also found that more than half of the wealthiest households were concentrated in the 18 states where Democrats hold both Senate seats.

“If you take the wealthiest one-third of the 435 congressional districts, we found that the Democrats represent about 58 percent of those jurisdictions,” Mr. Franc said.

A key measure of each district’s wealth was the number of single-filer taxpayers earning more than $100,000 a year and married couples filing jointly who earn more than $200,000 annually, he said.

But in a broader measurement, the study also showed that of the 167 House districts where the median annual income was higher than the national median of $48,201, a slight majority, 84 districts, were represented by Democrats. Median means that half of all income earners make more than that level and half make less.

Mr. Franc’s study also showed that contrary to the Democrats’ tendency to define Republicans as the party of the rich, “the vast majority of unabashed conservative House members hail from profoundly middle-income districts.”

“I just found the pattern across the board to be very interesting. That pattern shows the likelihood of electing a Democrat to the House is very closely correlated with how many wealthy households are in that district,” Mr. Franc said in an interview with The Washington Times.

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6 Feedbacks on "Democrats: the Party of the Rich"

Scott D

Only in LiberalThink is it considered a stigma to be associated with the most successful segment of the population. But one wonders what is the thought process of that segment when they support the party that pledges to punish success? Masochism?



Dominique R. Poirier

Scott,
I previously tried myself at finding an explanation to this peculiarity in a comment to another post JDZ published under the same title one year ago.

I made this attempt a bit long and some might find it somewhat boring, as you shall see; but still today I find it too short given the scope of the matter.

Should you express the required patience and further interest in the subject, here it is:
https://www.neveryetmelted.com/?p=1807



JDZ

People with inherited wealth, highly compensated people in the Entertainment Industry or the media, people whose wealth originated from a major stroke of luck in high tech commonly recognize their own good fortune, an unfortunately too often suppose that everyone else who has anything is similarly “just lucky.”

Additionally, of course, they know that supporting coercive Socialism will not actually impair their own advantaged position, but will rather provide opportunities to take bows while distributing someone else’s money to the needy.



Scott D

There is an element of chance involved in everyone’s fortune. What is distinctly perverse is liberals’ extrapolation to generality. Find a sympathetic “homeless” person and, voilà, we can dismiss the fact that most “homeless” are either lazy bums, drug addicts, or mentally ill. Find someone with idle wealth and now we can treat The Rich as mere dumb beneficiaries. Despite these popular portrayals, the overwhelming majority of wealthy people achieved that status by doing something (even acting) that others found valuable. And the vast majority of homeless have done nothing of the kind. To proceed as if that were untrue is to throttle the great economic engine that has powered the world’s prosperity.



Dominique R. Poirier

For a while I wondered whether sympathetic homeless and dumb beneficiary might not unite so as to do something good for the economy since both are unfortunate exceptions; until I came to realize that it was a silly idea as a synergy of sympathy and stupidity is unlikely to do anything successful.



Scott D

“Uniting Sympathy and Stupidity” could be the Democrat’s campaign banner (if truth in advertising applied to politics).



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