One thing I’ve heard from a lot of Republican acquaintances this week is “How could Scott Walker have lost? The economy is doing great. Everybody is working. Taxes are lower. What was there to hate?” The results of Tuesday night show the dangers of assuming that everyone shares the same values as us Conservatives.
Believe it or not, not everybody wants to work. And not everybody believes that you should have to work. A lot of the folks that found new jobs during Scott Walker’s eight years in office would much rather be sitting at home collecting assistance instead. Or they are in jobs that they feel are “beneath them” or that don’t pay them $15 an hour that some politicians tell them they “deserve”–even though they lack the basic skills to move up to anything better. What’s more, Walker was making thousand of people have to work to collect FoodShare benefits–and they were looking at having to work to stay in BadgerCare starting next year too.
We also tend to forget that not everyone pays taxes. The divide is edging closer to 50/50–so talk of rate reductions and additional credits don’t apply to nearly half of the people going to the polls. And as younger Wisconsinites opt for renting over homeownership, property tax reduction means absolutely nothing to them. How do schools and local governments get funded? They have no idea and quite frankly, they don’t care.
Even the six year tuition freeze at the UW System got no appreciation from those it benefited the most. We assume that not having to pay more every year is great for the consumer–but as far as those students are concerned, college should be free. And with the proliferation of student loans, they aren’t paying much out of pocket right now anyway–so what difference does it make?
Now I am not saying that we should turn our backs on the long-held American beliefs that you should work hard, save your money and pull your own weight. But as Tuesday night–and other recent elections have shown–there are fewer and fewer people that think the same way.
