Why do people some people think Republicans have money?

Question

It's not about their income, its about what the party stands for. I don't need anyone telling me how to spend what money I do have. Where did this idea come from?

Answer 1

i think you've got the idea slightly skewed...

most republicans in office are ppl that also have vast financial interests, and often own or share stock in large corporations. (this isnt to say that the democrats in power arent wealthy also). so, to the average person, it seems incorrect that the current republican cabinet wants to give tax breaks that are primarily helping those that already make the most money. if i have $50 million in the bank, i dont really need a tax break. to be realistic, i wouldnt feel even a large tax increase. it seems that they're more concerned with helping the ppl that already have the most money, as opposed to the other 95% of the citizens in the country.

this isnt to say that the democrats are some sort of magical problem solvers either. and i dont think they want to tell you how to spend your money, but when a politician makes laws to help them keep themselves wealthy, thats wrong.

Answer 2

I agree I do think it is odd. Statistic say the Republican party is made up predominately of the working class and have a lower educated base than the Democrats. Makes ya wonder who has the agenda and hands in our pockets doesn't it?

Answer 3

I think because they're generalizing about what they republicans believe, like you said. I know I'm republican and I'm not filthy stinking rich. But I guess if being a republican automatically made you rich everyone would be one, right?

Answer 4

Tax breaks for the wealthy.

Answer 5

Two sources, I think. Neither of which will be admitted by serious Republicans.

1st. Historically, since they covered themselves with corrupt disgrace during the Post Civil War years and abandoned their party's principles for power in the corrupt deal with the would be segregationist South in the very close Hayes-Tilden stolen election, the Republican Party has been in opposition to most any suggested reform, and in alliance with entrenched financial and social power. Theodore Roosevlet was a surprise, and an unpleasant one, sufficiently so that after he retired, the kene-jerk Tory aspects of the Party came to the fore and, despite his personal popularity, was able to force him out of the Party in 1912 in favor of Taft.

2nd. After another egregious bout with corruption during the Harding administration, and a complete failure to respond to the depression under Hoover, a consummately good politician (also named Roosevlet) got elected and kept the Republicans shut out of national power for four entire election cycles. And his successor, Truman, did it again. A certain amount of bitterness, and conspiracy theorizing in order to account for this persistent failure developed. And having been in the wilderness for so long, the Party acquired a certain reflex opposition to any polcy proposed by the Democrats and especially that archfiend FDR. This accounts for their continulal mutterings against, and occasional attempts at actually attempting, the rollback of evil socialist FDR schemes such as Socail Security or LBJ's Medicare, or other do-good fancies by the left wing minions of Satan.

And all of this history has mostly put Republicans on the side of monied interests, so much so that their policy has come to resemble the usual kleptocracies of the rich in many places. For instance, the Reagan years were the most corrupt (by numbers of officials charged or convicted) since Grant's (even including that pillar of sleaze, the Harding crew). Then there's the current Administration which insists on doing things in the dark (eg, the energy policy planning sessions early on with the VP whose very participants are State Secrets, and the "I'm the President and I can do anything I wish", from torture to imprisonment without a hearing (compare the Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights, assorted State Constitutions, and the US Federal Constitution and its Bill of Rights for the tradition to be conserved) wiretapping to watching your financial details to ... And, of course to the waste and corporate greed evidenced in contracting (eg in connection with the Iraq War), in legislation (with the K street boys actually writing the legislation in the dark of night for passage in the morning with no member of the House having had any opportunity to read what was being enacted) to Abramoff (an exclusively Republican creature, as not one dime of contribution from him or his is recorded as having gone to any Democrat -- as poor a metric as this is) to the DeLay outrages and corrupt use of government for political purposes to the repeated tax cuts for those with large wealth who naturally regard taxation of it as an outrage, regardless of any effect on the commonweal, ...

With that record, it is hard not to be misled into thinking it's a party of money, for money, and by money. So much so that many observers, many of them outsiders with no dog directly in the US political hunt, believe it. It's not true, and much less true when the Party first existed in its morally outstanding years under Lincoln. It's been coasting on that reputation (and grubby repellent power politics) ever since. The Christians aren't greatly concerned (to the extent they are actually Christians) with money nor with political power or the machinations requiste thereto, nor overmuch to the power mongers (who would sup with the Devil if it would win an election) except as a tool for their political machinations, which more or less accounts for two legs of the current Republican tripod.

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NB!!! None of the foregoing should be construed as praise for the Democrats, an anarchic party with little of a unified policy position if there ever was one. Claiming that a pile of bolts is a car can be done, and might make useful propaganda points amongst the unobservant, but doesn't make it so. And it is often thought, especially by the overly partisan, that all who do not agree must be either 1) opponents in all respects, or 2) members of the most prominent organized (hah! what a joke with respect to the Democrats) opposition. None of the preceeding establishes either position, nor does it provide conclusive proof of my own position on any of these questions. In some sense, I am an equal opportunity disdainer.

Answer 6

Where did this idea come from? Liberals.