About the central question in voter’s minds when—whenever—they go to the polls.
“Are you better off than you were four years ago.”
Where Reagan was wrong, I think, was in framing the question as a purely economic one, as in, Do you have more money than you did four years ago, and its close corollary, Do you have more money than you did four years because the government has taken less of a share of it?
If you did give away more of your income to the taxman than you did four years ago, but you have health care, or you’re gay and can marry, or you’re less fearful of being unemployed or your kids go to better schools or the streets in your community are safer, than yes, you are better off than you were, and are likely to register that contentment at the polls.
It’s worth bringing up because it’s been lost in a lot of the debate around the stimulus plan and the bank bailout, but in two years or four years most Americans won’t care about the price tag, or the party line vote, or even, I’d say, its contribution to the federal deficit.
What will matter is if it works—puts Americans back to work, let’s them keep their homes, and mitigates the sense of doom everyone is feeling right now.
Tags: obama, Reagan, What Works
