Tax issue taxes Republicans

Republicans could not protect the likes of George Clooney and Sarah Jessica Parker from higher taxes after all.

Two of the wealthiest Americans from two of the wealthiest states who hosted celebrity fundraisers for President Obama’s re-election surely had no idea that their candidate planned all along to boost their taxes.

Or maybe the tax issue was a sham all along reflecting the end of the line for the Republican Party as a majority party. Until Tuesday night, Jan. 1, Republicans in Congress habitually refused to raise taxes on the rich for absolutely no discernable reason.

Clooney from Los Angeles, Parker of Manhattan and other movie stars who live in New York and California are not worried that the Jan. 1 vote that will raise income taxes for individuals who make more than $450,000 yearly. Those and other wealthy states are primarily represented by Democrats in Congress, so why would most of our rich citizens support a policy that would hold down taxes on millions of dollars of income?

Such a policy can only originate from a political force which has run out of ideas that appeal to a high proportion of Americans.

The Republican Party, which controls the House of Representatives, simply does not reflect policies that approach broad support. They might have had a case for lowering taxes to some degree three decades ago, but that was long before a relative handful of Americans had millions of dollars in their hands while most of us were losing jobs or struggling with subsistence salaries.

In this vein, the GOP’s favorite customer - the angry white male - now directs his anger not at racial minorities but at the ultra-rich, most of whom are probably willing to pay higher taxes anyway.

The Republicans fail to advocate sensible policies. The Democratic Party, with all its faults, advocate credible domestic ideas and the GOP automatically opposes them because it is the only place they can go.

They even stepped in it when they urged the multi-billion-dollar deployment of armed guards to the schools while crying for deficit reduction. Their call to aid the mentally ill instead of instituting gun control will contribute to the deficit.

Speaking of the deficit, the Republicans created the deficit in large part by cutting taxes for the rich and engaging in two expensive wars, one of which (Iraq) was unnecessary from the outset.

Republicans will argue that they are of the party of austerity and prevent one-party rule. Anyone can work to cut expenses, and they should, but the GOP did not worry about deficits during President Bush’s tenure. Serving as the loyal opposition means nothing if they do not otherwise stand for anything that reflects the will of the majority, or close to the majority.

The party takes stands on certain positions, of course, most specially on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage, but these matters are of strong concern to a fraction of Americans, which makes them a minority party.

Within the space of a few days, 85 House Republicans voted for the tax law; John Boehner could only win re-election as House Speaker by a two-vote margin; and, most prominently, Republicans from the Northeast brutally slammed Boehner for delaying a vote on aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

The party’s hollowness is reflected in the numbers: Of 96 million registered voters, the GOP claims less than a third, 30 million, according to USA Today. Democrats top out at 42 million and the remaining 24 million are listed as independents or members of other parties.

Ideally, the Republicans should split into two separate parties because they are no longer unified on some fundamental issues. Such a break-off would provide a home for the center-right, those Americans who feel unrepresented by either the Democrats or Republicans.

This would mean losing the infrastructure of a major party either as both factions divide the spoils or one faction seizes them all. Starting a new party, even with experienced political hands involved, will take money and organization.

True, this would leave the Democratic Party with one-party domination for the time being. Whose fault it that? The Democrats engaged in outreach to centrist factions while the Republicans focused on what we might call inreach. The GOP should be rewarded for this?