The New Coalition of Republican Voters Still Likes Tax Cuts

R epublicans have a winning argument to attract new and diverse voters — if they are willing to listen to those voters. Much ink has been spilled on the best way for the Republican Party to reach beyond its traditional base and appeal to a multiracial, working-class electorate. Some on the right would have you believe that the solution is pushing the GOP to replace free-market, limited-government policies with higher taxes and punitive protectionism to rein in villainous caricatures of corporations. 

But that’s not what the American people — particularly working-class voters — say they want.

A recent Americans for Prosperity and Public Opinion Strategies poll found that Americans overwhelmingly want to see the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) extended and would view its expiration as a tax increase. Voters also see government-spending cuts and economic growth as the best way to deliver relief from inflation. Notably, these views are especially prevalent among working-class men and minorities whom the Republican Party has been courting more aggressively in recent years. There is no “diploma divide” when it comes to taxes or to the best approaches for reducing the deficit.

Consider the cost of letting the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act cuts expire in critical swing states. Nevadans’ average tax bills would increase by more than $3,500, Pennsylvanians’ by nearly $2,400, and Ohioans’ by more than $2,000.

Working-class and minority voters also prefer economic dynamism and low taxes across the board over government-driven central planning to make their lives more affordable, including the oft-discussed child tax credit, according to the poll’s memo.

“By margins of essentially four to one, both non-college whites (83 percent slowing price increases and increases wages/17 percent doubling child tax credit) and Hispanics (79 percent slowing price increases/21 percent doubling child tax credit) say that reducing inflation and increasing wages will do more to help American families than doubling the child tax credit,” Public Opinion Strategies partner Jim Hobart writes.

Self-anointed “populists” often couple the drive for protectionism and industrial policy with calls to punish corporations through higher tax rates, and the poll found that a narrow majority of Americans originally favor a corporate-tax hike. But when voters learn about the potential consequences, opinions shift drastically against it — and voters overwhelmingly recognize that they themselves would bear the costs of punitive corporate-tax hikes. Thirty-five percent of voters say it would drive price increases, 11 percent say it would lead to job losses, 6 percent say corporations would move their headquarters abroad — and 31 percent of voters say all those scenarios would play out. Only 14 percent of voters said none of those consequences would occur. “Majorities of non-college whites, Hispanics, and near majorities of those who live in rural areas say that increasing the corporate tax rate would hurt small businesses, American consumers, [and] middle class families,” Hobart says in the memo.

Economists across the political spectrum have long known that a corporate-tax hike would punish working-class families in the form of higher prices as well as reduced jobs and wages. It is notable that America’s working-class voters also intrinsically understand this, and they seem to understand it better than many “new Right” elites in Washington, D.C., who push for tax hikes.

So-called populists may claim to have concern for the aggrieved lower classes, but they inadvertently champion policies that would lead to less economic dynamism, a lower standard of living, and more state control over the citizens they claim to represent. It would be political malpractice to ignore working-class voters in the Rust Belt in a coin-toss election season, but it would be an even greater fault to misunderstand their priorities. Rather than condescend to a false caricature of these voters, right-of-center leaders should listen to what motivates them. Republicans can effectively reach the voters at the center of a multiethnic working class by going on offense, in part by making the case for continuing and building on Republicans’ 2017 tax relief.

The key to building a multiracial, working-class party is not a Republican version of central planning popular among left-wing graduate students. Instead, it is by making permanent Republicans’ signature reforms in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, effectively averting a multitrillion-dollar tax hike on families and employers alike. “White voters without college degrees, rural voters, as well as Hispanic voters say now is a bad time to increase taxes” the memo says. The margins are overwhelming: More than 80 percent of non-college-educated whites and Hispanics hold that view, as do nearly three in four rural voters.

Candidates who give working-class voters a message of true empowerment — policies that deliver economic freedom while cutting back on inflationary government spending — could deliver a knockout blow this tense election. Thankfully, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R., La.) laid out his plans for Republicans to do exactly that if they retain the House majority, committing to “extending and building upon” the TCJA, a “responsible” government of “reduced scope and reduced spending,” and several other free-market reforms. The best strategy for victories in November would be for all Republicans to ignore advocates of bigger government and instead heed the wisdom of the voters themselves.