Democrats must be soooo confused. They just aren’t getting as much voter love as they thought their federal spending spree would buy.
POLITICO’s Sam Stein is out with a revealing news story about the Democratic disappointment. The title of the article tells it all, “Dems thought giving voters cash was the key to success. So what happened?”
The article correctly points out that Democrats assumed they could, in essence, buy votes with their multi-trillion-dollar giveaways to voters—giveaways that have garnered no Republican support.
But that voter love hasn’t appeared. Indeed, President Biden’s popularity is sinking lower than a snake’s belly in a wheel rut (as we say in Texas).
So are those voters unaware or just ungrateful for the Democratic largess?
Many Democrats think it’s the former. The article quotes a “top Senate Democratic aide” as saying, “It’s great to deliver and do things, but you have to actually go out and tell the f---ing world about it.”
But maybe there’s another reason for the voter cold shoulder. The article cites a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll that indicates it may be the latter: “61 percent of respondents said they’d received the credit—a $300 payment per month for every child under the age of 7 and a $250-per-month payment for every child under the age of 17. But only 39 percent of respondents said that the payment had a major impact on their lives.”
So roughly two-thirds of those who received the child tax credit said it didn’t make much difference for them. That response mirrors what I’ve heard from several middle-class families who received the $1,400 relief check and/or the child tax credit. Why was the government sending them money when they didn’t really need it?
Good question.
And while many of these middle-class (and even upper-middle-class) voters think the government has a role in helping the poor, they see giving money to them as a waste of taxpayer dollars—and it is.
The good news is the article says some Democrats are beginning to rethink their vote-buying strategy: “It’s also compelling officials in the [Democratic] party to revisit the calculation they made in January. Giving people money may not be the dispositive political winner that they imagined.”
Here’s the takeaway from these massive federal giveaways: Millions of Americans don’t want or need to be on the public dole, but Democrats have put them there. Come November 2022, Democrats may find out just how much their spending spree really cost—not in money, but in votes.
October 13, 2021