Trying to decide whether to vote Democratic or Republican this November? Well, here’s some food for thought.
1) In all income categories except the 95th percentile, income growth rates under Democratic presidents exceeded income growth rates under Republican ones. That suggests greater income equality can coexist with (or even help create) greater prosperity.
2) The 95th percentile fared about the same under Democrats and Republicans. (This chart shows it doing slightly better under Democrats, but the margin of error erases the Democrats’ advantage.)…
In sum, even if you don’t care about environmental protection, women’s reproductive rights, gay rights, civil liberties, or just about anything else aside from how much money you make, you should still vote Democratic. And that holds however much income you earn, but particularly if you’re not in the top 5% richest Americans. Republicans may revel in being the “I’ve got mine so FU” party, but the fact is, they’re not even effective at that. No wonder they have people like this jerk working for them.
P.S. Also note in this presentation that the effective federal tax rate today is significantly lower than it was in 1979, but the richest have benefited disproportionately under Republican (mis)rule. Thus, the income share ratio between the top 20% and the bottom 20% increased from 8x to 14x between 1979 and 2007. In other words, the richest Americans got a lot richer, the rest of us were pretty much left in the dust. Heckuva job, Republicans!
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