Why Do Conservatives Vote Against Their Own Interests?

Michigan Congressman John Conyers, Dean of the Congressional Black Caucus,
raised a compelling question in a conversation the other day: “Why do conservatives
vote against their own interests?” If we can answer this, we might reach the
common ground to solve the country’s economic, debt,
and growing income disparity issues.

Let’s get this much out of the way: conservatives do vote against their own interests.
Pundits on the right may try to undermine Conyers’ question as being couched in
terms that favor the Democratic Congressman’s side of the aisle, but deflecting the
question means explaining away historical facts. Under Democratic presidents since 1930,
who pursued agendas emphasizing people programs while pressing tax breaks for middle
and lower incomes and resisting tax breaks for the wealthy, the average GDP
increased by 5.4%, compared to a 1.6% average GDP increase during the presidencies
of their Republican counterparts. The Republicans moved to cut taxes on
the wealthiest Americans and gained support by calling them “job creators.”

This data from the Commerce Department and OMB proves that business and the
economy boom under Democratic presidents, but bust under Republicans.
The data counters the Republicans’ claims that the rich tax cuts ever really “trickle down”
or are good for business or anyone but the very rich. By the numbers, votes for tax-cutting
Republicans since 1930 actually have been votes against businesses’ financial security.
“Trickle Down” has not worked since Herbert Hoover tried it and failed.

So the question stands: why do conservatives vote against themselves?
Inaccurately perceived self interest seems to be the reason. People want to get money
from greater tax cuts if they are already wealthy (and if they are not, they believe
the Republicans’ illusion that they will become rich quicker or make a company
do more business by the policy). The accurate legacy of the Republicans tax-cutting
agenda is smaller paychecks for the average American. The numbers are irrefutable.

The conservatives’ campaigns, when candidates can take time away from attacking
each other, boil down to little more than incessant repetition of vague promises to
resurrect the American Dream with pure rhetoric, beating voters over
the head with tax-cutting.

Recent studies from both at home and abroad detail a disturbing trend: it is now harder
to transcend class in the U.S. than in our Western European counterparts like
England, Denmark, and Sweden. We no longer lead in our own American dream of
upward mobility. We’ve done it to ourselves. There is an ever-growing “mobility gap”
in the U.S. keeping poor people from being able to rise while keeping the wealthiest
of Americans more financially secure. For the first time in generations, it is actually easier
for people at the lowest income levels in those countries, which conservatives
keep attacking in the debates as “socialist”, to rise than it is for Americans.

While both sides of any debate assume they are working with all the facts,
conservatives are more likely to point fingers at President Obama than to address
the fact that their tax-cutting programs amount to corporate welfare.
As Bill Clinton says in his new book, Back to Work, the outcome of three decades
of conservative fiscal policies focused on cutting taxes and deregulating industry has
left voters facing high unemployment while executives collect six and seven figure bonuses.
The top 1% in America increased their income 18-fold over the last 30 years while the
rest of the country has stayed stagnant. The U.S. Government Accounting Office
reported that tax policy favoring the rich has helped cause the income disparity
and the highest poverty numbers since the Great Depression.

The Koch brothers have been exposed as major funders of the “grassroots”
Tea Party movement and the money has meant advertising, a big influence in
how voters vote. When conservatives cut taxes on corporate bosses and defund
social programs, the very-very rich get richer and everybody else including the
overwhelming majority of conservatives get poorer, yet conservative politicians
somehow gain from that.

Conservatives campaign on promises of restoring the American Dream,
but they ignore the facts concerning whom their policies actually benefit.
In the end, their policies diminish overall economic mobility.
When conservatives talk about “focusing on the family”, what they really mean is
they want you to worry about your family to deflect the economic issues that they
are not solving and in fact are making worse. If you are preoccupied with your
empty wallet, you are less likely to notice their sponsors’ bulging pockets.
The liberty conservatives espouse should actually cause them to support more
equitable taxing.

So to answer Conyers’ question, conservatives must be voting to make the top
1% rich because under their policies, no one else ever gets there.

http://truth-out.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=6324:why-do-conservatives-vote-against-their-own-interests

( ( ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7wc55oXWf8 ) ) )

***Also because they like to suffer. Thus the phrase "Sadomasochist Voters."
Like why small towns have nothing like they do in bigger city's.
The people keep themselves suppressed overall also keeping things down
like the pay and the lack of sales from low pay, noted like in many peoples
cars they drive in small towns, there are some really bad ones out there,
that says a lot!

If they wanted things to get better they would of raised the pay to give
the people more money to burn. The higher pay would be all over town
and so would be the better sales! But like in Oklahoma many here don't
like to pay higher wages and so low does the sales go as many try to get a car
and hear "Sorry your income is too low!" Really I don't need one I need to walk!

Or like Human services in Oklahoma with food stamps. If they wanted to get you
out of poverty you would get the help to get out. Not only get a small amount of
food stamps to make sure you are stuck in it because they want more
people on food stamps they get more government money that way.
Like a granny getting $10 a month. Makes you wonder how much
Government money they get for that? Go call them and ask!

It all goes down to people voting so they can make things better for themselves and
not to be a "Sadomasochist Voter." You would think they would have enough by
now and make things better for themselves!

Everything many does to stop poverty or to bring up education is kept
down by conservative policy's in the end.

It all takes care of it's self in time. It's like bad voting is like burning the weeds
making room for grass to grow! Sometimes you have to let it burn.
Let it burn and take cover!