My 13 year old son is helping me understand the power of the "Democrats will raise your taxes" meme.

[DuaneBidoux]

In 8th grade this year he is doing American history and he was just covering the emergence of Jacksonian democracy and its populace message. We were discussing the elements of Jacksonian democracy and I would start the statement "Democrats believed..." and he inevitably finished "in raising taxes."

I was astounded because he knows we are democrats and he has heard me speak about many issues other than taxation that are important to me and my wife but somehow over and over he has heard (somewhere) this phrase "Democrats will raise your taxes."

I've tried to communicate to him that cutting taxes, if it increases debt is merely a tax increase on the next generation. I have tried to relate things he appreciates, such as schools, police, streets and sewers, military protection, to things that must be paid for and that this is what taxes do, but somehow these are just a little too subtle for him to grasp and it always comes back, in his simple 13 year old mind to "democrats raise your taxes and republicans cut them."

It has made me understand that we will always face a weaker position in explaining what we believe in because ours is a complex message not easily reduced to one phrase slogans.

[Ian David]

1. Republicans will cut taxes for the very rich, and make everyone else pay for it. n/t

[gkhouston]

3. And by "everyone else", that includes our children and grandchildren.

It might be enlightening for your 13 year old to take a peek at the size of the deficit during the last 30 years.

[Turbineguy]

8. So how do you explain

to a 13 year old the meaning of all this. That is to him. In language and concepts that make sense. Becuase if you can explain it to a 13 year old, you've probably got the formula for explaining it to somebody who votes republican and here I'm talking about those who got a tax cut so they could spend the money on gasoline or food so they did not actually have anything left over except future debt.

[gkhouston]

13. well, I was a pretty weird 13 year old so I may not be the right person to ask.

But I might try for a concrete approach -- use stacks of Monopoly money, and I'd be the "rich" person getting the tax cut and make the 13 year old the "not rich" person getting a tax cut. You have to first explain to the 13 year old that his stack of money doesn't all go to video games and such -- he has to spend it on boring shit like food and housing. Show him how much of that "big" tax cut he really gets versus what the rich get and that might get his interest. That's lesson 1. Lesson 2 would be what tends to happen to the deficit when we have tax cuts, i.e., there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Not sure how to do that one, but simply looking at how our deficit has imploded during Republican administrations is a real eye-opener. The debt doesn't go away simply because it's been delayed. It's like a sack of garbage festering in a closet. Sooner or later, it must be dealt with and if you wait too long, it could become toxic. Maybe that would be the analogy -- the money "saved" via the tax cut would be degradable food but oh, I hope my kid doesn't need such a concrete lesson! :crazy:

[Tigress DEM]

14. Corporate Welfare

Millionares & Billionares DON'T PAY their fair share.

Corporate CEOs were allowed to pay .01 a gal for jet fuel & the rest of us were paying over $2 a gallon for gas to go to work.

Oil companies can just say, "No" to paying rent on lands leased from the American people and the 'publican congress changes the rules so they can get away with it.

Meanwhile families are losing their homes.

Banks who change the rules in the middle of the game so they can take people's homes away with unfair loan practices.

Corporations bribe local governments and say, "I want the land that house is on, get it for me" and the local goverment abuses "emminent domain" to steal that land away from the home owner. Even when the home owner goes to court to try and keep their house they still lose it AND have to pay all those legal bills.

[Tigress DEM]

16. Then again, sign him up on DU and challenge him to make his point.

THAT would be like throwing someone in to swim and saying good luck I guess.

Still he could watch for awhile first.

Kids are resilient.

[Cabcere]

21. My parents always taught me

that even though nobody, including them, likes paying taxes, it's something that we all have to do so we can have the benefit of things like emergency services, and that people (generally Republicans) who promise to cut/eliminate taxes are almost always doing so at the expense of those services. They explained it as a matter of simple math (and I'm sure it's more complex than that, but this is how they taught it to me when I was growing up) - that the money has to come from somewhere, and that if people want to be able to use public services then it's only fair that they pay the taxes. This is how I knew at age 12 that Jim Gilmore's gubernatorial platform of "No Car Tax!" wouldn't work - because, like my parents said, the money has to come from somewhere...and if he eliminated the car tax, other taxes would have to be raised, or the economy would crash. (Which it pretty much did.) :shrug: I don't know if that helps, but that's how I understood taxes as a kid.

[iconoclastic cat]

2. Show him the fruits of said tax cuts.

Also, there is statistical proof that tax increases lowers government spending.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

4. Well, that problem isn't limited to taxes.

"Cut and run"
"Tax and spend"
"Welfare queens"
"Fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here"

You've undoubtedly heard those slogans. The problem is our responses are far too nuanced, because, quite frankly, the issues themselves are far too nuanced to water down to a short phrase that makes any kind of sense if you ACTUALLY WANT TO SOLVE THE FUCKING PROBLEMS!

I mean, really, when people say the Democrats have no real plans, what they're really saying is that they can't understand them or don't want to sit through a 20 minute policy speech to hear them.

[TheBaldyMan]

5. ask him where he'd get the money, if not from taxes then where?

The money goes for essential services. If taxes aren't high enough to pay for them then you get Walter Reed.

It's also important to stress that the money should be spent wisely, not given in sacks to Halliburton without any accountability.

Personally I blame the parents :P

[Tempest]

6. Use his allowance as an example

Increase his allowance by 25%.

Then take away 50% of his total allowance.

Explain to him it is needed to pay for the tax cut that enabled you to increase his allowance by 25%.

[Turbineguy]

10. ... and...

you're giving the money to somebody who has a nicer bike (or skateboard or whatever)

[Tigress DEM]

17. 'publican math! I luv it!

Now see here, I just gave you an increase of 25% and that is unprescedented in the history of this household.

Now I realize that YOUR allowance was decreased by a TOTAL of 50% after that, but that isn't a real reflective number of the entire situation. As I understand it your actual allowance has gone down by only 25% when you figure in the 25% increase that balances it out.

Besides your mother & I now have more money to take our second honeymoon, and that's a more fair and equitable balance of the tax stream because we actually make all the money that comes into this household. And we all have to make our sacrifices against the war on terror. After all, you don't want to be giving that 25% to Osama Bin Laden do you?

[sandnsea]

7. Democrats govern

Republicans don't.

And that is the difference between the two parties.

[mudesi]

9. Educated people are liberal

It's no surprise that the more educated one is, the greater the probability that one will be a liberal. Conservatism preys on ignorance and stupidity, and uses marketing in order to keep the upper class in power. These "slogans" are easy to feed to the uneducated masses, and the conservatives have been doing it in America for a good 3 decades now.

[Cabcere]

22. That's statistically very true

not just here in the U.S., but globally. (Of course, I learned this from a college professor - and we know all of those are libruls!!11! - at a liberal arts school, lol, but I don't think that changes the facts.) :shrug:

[Tigress DEM]

11. Easy phrase for you, "publicans don't cut YOUR taxes, only billionaire's taxes"

Tell your son that if we went to a straight 10% EVERYBODY PAYS and ALL the Millionaires & Billionaires paid their fair share, we wouldn't have to worry about social security or having enough money for ANY social program.

It's the fact that the tax code has been designed so complex and with so many loopholes, that corporate ceo's were paying .01 a gallon for their corporate jet fuel while the rest of us were paying over $2 a gallon for gas to go to work.

Teach him the phrase, "Corporate Welfare" and talk to him about oil companies who have made the MOST Obscene Profits of ANY company EVER during the time of this Iraq war and then REFUSED to pay their "rent" for properties they leased from the American people even during Katrina when that money that is legitimately OWED to Americans by corporations who could well afford to pay it was denied at a time when it could have helped rebuild a community that paid its fair share of taxes only to be ignored by the 'publicans.

Tell him that the 'publican solution to the disparity THAT creates is to sell off national forest land so that his children won't have that in their national heritage. All because this pRes is an oil man and doesn't understand that little people have the right to live in America also.

Ask him if he thinks it's fair that companies hide their money off shore so they don't have to pay their fair share of taxes.

Let him know that if the millionaires and billionaires just paid their fair share and didn't spend all their money buying 'publicans we'd all be better off in America and wouldn't have to raise taxes to have adequate services that we all share and use.

Tell him not all Republicans are 'publicans, and have him look up publican in the Bible.

[B Calm]

27. spot on

[B Calm]

12. Thanks to the irresponsible spending habits of the republicans

we have to find a way to pay for their mistakes or our country and government would have went totally broke well over 100 years ago.

The REPUBLICANS run up the deficit so high when they are in office, that the only way to keep the country running is to tax the working class and poor Democrats (and Republicans alike- hell, they don't care who they screw). The only ones with the balls to do what is necessary is the Democrats. The REPUBLICANS screw up the system, then don't do anything to fix it. They sit on their asses and wait for the Democrats to take office to do what's needed to keep the country operating - then the REPUBLICANS that caused all the mess in the first place sit back on their fat pimply hemorrhoid asses and point their bony shit faced fingers at the totally innocent Democrats.

Fucking Ass holes are war mongers as well. Make or twist laws as situations change. They don't know how to live within the rules of the game....they just change the rules to suit their own needs!

Since all the rich people are REPUBLICANS, the only ones left to bail out the country are the poor and middle class Democrats. As long as there are REPUBLICANS around to screw things up, us poor and middle class Democrats will have to pay the bills for the bills they run up. I believe other countries call them CORPORTISTS! Screw the MFckng REPUBLICANS!!!! They are also the ones that invented credit cards and broke up Ma Bell. They also sit at the tip of the oil company's. They rule, and we poor Democrats suffer from them worm shit eating REPUBLICANS! If not for the REPUBLICANS, we would have clean air, the solar ice caps would not be melting, we would not be at war, would have no income tax at all, and would all retire millionaires! Unfortunately, the only way these hard headed animal screwing MFer's to get the message, is to drop dead and DIE!!!! Then, God will enlighten them and only then will they see all the screwed up shit they have caused in this country.....to include War, Pestilence, Greed, Obesity, the Flu, and Walmart's.

I could go on for a million years, but why bother? As long as this country has REPUBLICANS, it will continue to be screwed up until we all die from global warming storms and earthquakes the REPUBLICANS caused. Then it won't matter one way or the other. We we will all be dead - and it will be because of the dingleberry corporate ass kissing REPUBLICANS!

[Ioo]

15. You could beat him...

just kidding... :P

You could SHOW him republicans at work, like the free clinic with no funding, or the fireman having boot drives to buy a truck.

[Tigress DEM]

18. Then he'd have to switch to the 'publican party and start having sex w/animals. Too severe.

nt

[global1]

19. Remember *'s Motto - Leave No Child Behind......

now you know what he means by that.

[denverbill]

20. Talk to him about the 'good old days' of the late 19th century.

To conservatives, that time was nirvana, because taxes were low, and taxes are all they care about.

But during that time, think of what was happening to the poor and others in America:

Lack of sanitary systems caused periodic cholera and other epidemics resulting in the deaths of millions of Americans.
6 year old children worked in mines because no laws existed forbidding them to do so, and because their parents could not earn enough working in the mines to pay to take care of their family (until OSHA was funded and minimum wage laws were passed)
Food was never inspected and was frequently contaminated with rat droppings and other substances (until the FDA was funded).
Corrupt cops let organized crime figures get away with murder, literally (until the FBI was funded).
People frequently lost their life savings when their bank went under (until the FDIC was funded).
Sick people who couldn't afford treatment simply died (until Medicaid and Medicare were funded).
...

Nobody likes to pay taxes, myself included. I don't want to pay a penny more than I have to. I don't want to raise taxes for the sheer joy of paying more in taxes. But if a problem exists and the problem can be solved if I pay a few dollars more in taxes, then I'm willing to do so.

Democrats believe that government can help people live better lives if we all pitch in together. Republicans believe it's every man for himself, and if someone with less ability can't make it on their own, they should die.

[Cabcere]

24. Very well said, denverbill.

I think your last paragraph there sums up the whole issue just about perfectly. :thumbsup:

[NashVegas]

23. A Little Rebellion?

Is a possibility to consider.

[ReadTomPaine]

25. Answer - "and Republicans believe in child labor"

That should lay it out nicely for him in a way very clear to any 13 year old.

[Leopolds Ghost]

26. Jackson?? He was a small-d democrat who believed in CUTTING taxes (and killing Indians).

Your boy is not being well-educated in school, I'm afraid. Do you live in a heavily conservative school district?