Taxing marriage and the median voter

Confirming that we are "ruled" by the Tories' second XI, we get this:

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Andy Burnham said there is a "moral case" for promoting the traditional family through the tax system.

Now, even if we assume - which we perhaps shouldn't - that the state should promote marriage, tax breaks are an expensive way of doing so. Few people will get married because there are tax breaks, and those who do so are likely to be the sort of mean-minded money-grubbers whose marriage won't last anyway.
Tax breaks for married couples mean giving money to people who'd be married anyway - that's a deadweight cost. For a given level of public spending, this cost is paid by the non-married.
And this is inegalitarian. On average, ceteris paribus, married people are richer, happier and healthier (pdf) than the unmarried. Tax breaks for married couples therefore give to those that already have, at the expense of those who haven't.
You might think this moronic Tory policy is just another attempt to woo the median voter.
To which I can only quote Robert Robinson: "would that it were, would that it were."
The truth is, the Tories second XI (I refuse to dignify these reactionary gobshites with the word "Labour") has little interest in the true median voter.
The median voter, if he's a man, earns around £500 a week - £25,000 a year - and lives in a house worth less than £200,000. He has more chance of being made redundant than of inheriting big money, his livelihood is threatened more by incompetent or rapacious bosses or the tax man than by immigrants, and his kids' future depends much more upon the condition of state schools than upon inheritance tax thresholds.
But the Tories second XI isn't interested in this median voter. The only median it seems to care about is the median Daily Mail editorial writer.
And the joke is, I suspect he might not believe what he writes anyway.

Comments

[aje]

Isn't that the median member of the electorate? - if the relatively poor are systematically less likely to vote, the median *voter* might well be a Daily Mail reader...

[Steve B, UK]

I can't even coherently type how much this idea disgusts me. I managed it last time the Tories tried it, though:
http://tyrell.livejournal.com/437419.html

It has subtle and incisive political commentary, including the line "What a load of giant steaming bollocks" in all caps.

[Matthew]

Aje has a point, and also of course its the median voter in 100 or so marginals that unfortunatly dictate a lot of the election planning.

[James Chapman]

The Tories second XI seems to have lost their way with this one, or should I say followed the wrong path, you know the one that also has inheritance tax and non-domicile signs along it. What next I wonder!

[Chris Williams]

I'm the median voter, it seems. Tell you what, they've paid sod all attention to my desires in the last 10 years, so I wouldn't get your hopes up.

[Sage King]

>>and his kids' future depends much more upon the condition of state schools than upon inheritance tax thresholds<<

nope, with 38% and rising of 16 year olds living with only one birth parent, it does not really matter what ever system of education you have, 38% of the kids are psychologically damaged by the break up of their parents,and perform accordingly.

and how did we get to this situation? by not making correct moral choices, i know you modern liberals dont like having to make such choices but when it comes to children the state has to SIGNAL to its citizens what it moral choices it favours.

otherwise you get this kind of shit.a blind man getting kicked to death in broad daylight by two 14 years olds.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/7029993.stm

and we might rescue future generations of our lost youth. have a look at what the judge said about them and their so called families.

[mat]

Tax breaks for marriage people are equivalent to tax rises for single people. Supposedly this will promote marriage, and thus promote stability. Well fuck that. It won't promote marriage at all, except in a few marginal cases. Moreover, I don't see why single people should be forced to pay more tax just because on average they're less 'stable'. Should *blacks* be forced to pay more tax just because on average they're less 'stable'? If anything, single people should pay less tax because they don't spawn a whole bunch of fucking kids who run around committing crime and consuming 'free' healthcare, schooling, benefits, etc. I already hate the government for forcing me to pay so much tax. Now the government wants to impose its moral system on me too? Fuck the government. Fuck democracy. Fuck the voters. Fuck the people of Britain. Fuck you.

[Bob B]

"otherwise you get this kind of shit: a blind man getting kicked to death in broad daylight by two 14 years olds"

Let's not understate. Concurrent with that horrific trial, we also had from the same Labour heartland in Yorkshire, the following news items from Blunkett country:

"A 31-year-old woman has died after falling from the fourth floor of a block of flats in Sheffield. . . Six men were arrested in connection with the death, which police are treating as suspicious."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/7025453.stm

"Police are investigating the death of a man whose body was found in woodland in South Yorkshire by passers-by on Tuesday afternoon."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/7025698.stm

"A big rise in the number of cannabis farms has been uncovered since the drug was declassified three years ago, South Yorkshire Police say."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/7025429.stm

"THE man in charge of Doncaster's troubled Keepmoat Stadium resigned yesterday, less than a week before councillors are due to debate the future of the organisation. Doncaster Council confirmed last night that Andy Nicholl had stepped down as the stadium management company's chief executive, less than a year after the venue's official opening. Mr Nicholl's departure comes after it emerged that the stadium was almost £1m in debt, with Doncaster Council being asked to underwrite an increased overdraft to keep it afloat."
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/localnews/Chief-at-troubled-Keepmoat-Stadium.3258605.jp

[Maynard Handley]

"nope, with 38% and rising of 16 year olds living with only one birth parent, it does not really matter what ever system of education you have, 38% of the kids are psychologically damaged by the break up of their parents,and perform accordingly."

So, Sage, why not do the job right --- state-supported polygamy? The more parents that are present in a family, the more will remain if some of them leave.

[Matt Munro]

I'll vote for any party that pisses liberals off, this median voter is going blue at the next election and I get the feeling I'n not the only one.

[pommygranate]

Much as i detest the State dictating to me how i should live my life, Sage does have a point. Problem kids are over-represented from families without fathers.

That said, the tax code should be marriage neutral. At the moment, it excessively favours single parenthood. And that is not helping working class kids.

[Matt Munro]

How do you devise a tax code that is marriage neutral and doesn't disadvantage working class kids though ? The real problem is that the tax/benefits system incentivises working class women to move from dependence on a (wage earning) father to dependency on a (benefit paying) state. It's devised entirely from a feminist perspective with no thought given to the consequences for the children, or society. I don't beleive its possible to correct this without some implicit value judgement about relationships.

[Blissex]

«The truth is, the Tories second XI (I refuse to dignify these reactionary gobshites with the word "Labour") has little interest in the true median voter.
The median voter, if he's a man, earns around £500 a week - £25,000 a year - and lives in a house worth less than £200,000.»

The problem is that 70% of voters (at least!) are landlords, plus many of them are fully vested in various entitlements, and middle aged, and they feel as a result class solidarity with even bigger landlords and other rentiers.

Thus the majority of the voters has become ever more authoritarian, petty, mean in the past few decades as they have grown into their middle and old age wealthy and afraid. Old men and in particular old women tend to own far more assets than the average, and are temperamentally inclined to view everything in terms of risks of losing than opportunities to gain, which is more like the young. And never mind the young: as many of them are waiting for serious financial and real wealth to drop in their laps, they have the same class interests as their seniors.

It is in part the result of inevitable demographics, but mostly of thatcherite social engineering, after a conservative think tank discovered that right wing voting was closely linked to house, share and car ownership.

The modern wet Tory party is electable only because it makes the right noises acceptable to this overwhelmingly majority of "f*ck you, I am fully vested" voters, no matter their wealth level.

These voters all share the same interests: lower wages, lower interest rates, lower taxes on capital, higher asset prices, higher NHS spending, higher social repression.

And the wet Tory party have delivered all these things, dear to the hearts of every right thinking member of the silent majority (especially those with a state funded job, the real electoral base of the wet Tories).

If you don't pander to these voters and their interests, and elegantly (gross pandering like Howard makes them feel embarrassed as they are of course great hypocrites) you don't get elected.

There is a great deal of difference in the politics of 7% vs 70% of voters being landlords, and many have not adjusted their thoughts accordingly.

«Isn't that the median member of the electorate? - if the relatively poor are systematically less likely to vote, the median *voter* might well be a Daily Mail reader...»

That also counts a lot. In the USA where campaign donations matter greatly only 5% of voters (which are just 50% of the electorate) make them, and that is the wealthiest 5%.

«Aje has a point, and also of course its the median voter in 100 or so marginals that unfortunatly dictate a lot of the election planning. »

This is also because the parties are so heavily polarized geographically (another good reason to switch out of first-past-the-post), and the swing electorate that matters is the suburban entitled vested bit of the whole. Because if New L*bour is the wet Tory party, it is hard to imagine the less fortunate to switch voting to the rabid Tory party, so their votes can be taken for granted.

And never mind, because some people among the wet Tory party are still ''one country Tories'' (for example Gordon Brown himself) and have legislated under cover of pandering some decent piece of support for the less fortunate minorities.

Some excellent quote from the characteristically honest Grover Norquist on the logic behind the social engineering strategy of the past 20 years:

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=11699
«The 1930s rhetoric was bash business -- only a handful of bankers thought that meant them. Now if you say we're going to smash the big corporations, 60-plus percent of voters say "That's my retirement you're messing with. I don't appreciate that". And the Democrats have spent 50 years explaining that Republicans will pollute the earth and kill baby seals to get market caps higher. And in 2002, voters said, "We're sorry about the seals and everything but we really got to get the stock market up."»

http://www.thevanguard.org/thevanguard/other_writers/norquist_grover/060803.shtml
http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0903/0903norquistinterview.htm
«The growth of the investor class--those 70 per cent of voters who own stock and are more opposed to taxes and regulations on business as a result--is strengthening the conservative movement. More gun owners, fewer labor union members, more homeschoolers, more property owners and a dwindling number of FDR-era Democrats all strengthen the conservative movement versus the Democrats.»

[Blissex]

«There is a great deal of difference in the politics of 7% vs 70% of voters being landlords, and many have not adjusted their thoughts accordingly.»

And that change by the way explains the rise and rise of managerialism: when 70% of voters are landlords, the last thing they want is politics, because the right thinking silent majority attitude is the only possible politics, and what matters is then only the managerial competence in issuing ASBOs, not getting caught winking immigrants in, rescuing the savings at taxpayer expense of people who have more than £30,000 ready cash in a bank, channeling more money in the NHS. Politics is controversy, and who needs controversy when 70% of voters share the same class interests? That 70% is just interested in good administration that protects their wealth.

[The SageKing]

>>So, Sage, why not do the job right --- state-supported polygamy? The more parents that are present in a family, the more will remain if some of them leave<<

I said the state had to SIGNAL not impose, there is a big difference.

Thats the thing with negative liberty, you can do what you want, as long as it does not impact on the rest of us who choose differently, when you choose to hop in and out of bed with whoever and produce sprogs with whoever IMPACTS on me, in the state of society, and the state of my finances.

I dont what to live in a society where 15 people stand and watch as 2 14 year olds kick to death a blind man, who does not carry a white stick because he feared it would make him a target.

the majority has rights too.

[reason]

I dont what to live in a society where 15 people stand and watch as 2 14 year olds kick to death a blind man, who does not carry a white stick because he feared it would make him a target.
So SageKing, I take it you'll let us know your new address then.