According to a September 2013 YouGov/Huffington Post survey:
Do you think the Republican Party is most interested in helping the poor, helping the rich or helping the middle class? The rich…51%
Earlier this year a CNN/ORC International poll asked:
Do you think the policies of the Republican Party generally favor the rich, favor the middle class, or favor the poor? Favor the rich…61%
A few years back Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson penned an article that insisted:
Modern-day Republicans have become, quite simply, the Party of the One Percent – the Party of the Rich.
But just who are the infamous 1%? According to Business Insider the answer varies depending on where you live.
Hands down, Washington, D.C., is home to the super one-percenters, which include those earning nearly $700,000. Not far behind is Connecticut, where the top 1% starts at more than $600,000. Next are New York and New Jersey at more than $500,000 each, followed by Massachusetts at just under $500,000. At the other end of the spectrum is Idaho, where folks just have to earn $274,000 to join the one-percent club. Only slightly higher—but still less than $300,000—are Arkansas, New Mexico, Montana, and Wyoming.
But in terms of the super-rich, say the top 0.1 percent, it turns out they’re more likely to be Democrats, not Republicans, according to Investor’s Business Daily:
For decades, the Democrats have been getting away with portraying Republicans as hateful men who do the bidding of the wealthy at the expense of the country's poor and middle class.
Yet as the Associated Press reported just before Christmas, "it's actually the liberal-minded who shelled out the most cash in the just completed midterm elections."
What's more, "the two biggest super PACs of 2014," the "Senate Majority PAC and House Majority PAC," were both backed by Democrats.
The AP, using data from the Center for Responsive Politics, continues:
• "Among the 183 groups that wrote checks of $100,000 or more to another group, Democrats had a 3-to-1 cash advantage."
• "Overall, for the campaign season that just ended, donors who gave more than $1 million sent roughly 60 cents of every dollar to liberal groups."
• "Among the 10 biggest donors, Democrats outspent Republicans by an almost 3-to-1 margin."
• "Among groups that funneled more than $100,000 to allies, the top of the list tilted overwhelmingly toward Democrats — a group favoring the GOP doesn't appear on the list until No. 14."
Rather than peddling more dishonest, class warfare-driven PR campaigns, we should be advancing better public policies based on our bedrock principles of equality of opportunity and the pursuit of happiness. That would help make all of us rich—and not just in a monetary sense.
We should end our punitive tax code once and for all. That way all Americans could keep more of their hard-earned salaries and invest in a stronger economy with more job opportunities. Rather than exporting our tax dollar to Washington, we should invest locally in programs and initiatives tailored to meet unique community needs.