Devising a Terrible Poll to Cover for Socialists

Business Insider wanted to get to the bottom of the public stance on the Amazon HQ2/NYC issue. If you don't know, Amazon chose NYC to host half of their second headquarters. They were set to receive approximately $3 billion dollars in tax incentives to locate there and add 25,000 jobs to Queens. City and state Democrats approved the deal, including the mayor and the governor, but after the announcement, some local Democrats, including the representative of the 14th District in New York, strongly objected.

One of their arguments was that the $3 billion dollars could be better spent elsewhere. "It's fair to ask why we don't invest the capital for public use, + why we don't give working people a tax break." Many jumped on these comments as illustrating ignorance of the mechanism involved. The statement is vague enough that it could be interpreted either way, but she could easily augment it to make it not sound idiotic.

So to determine whether people agreed with the Governor or Mayor or the local socialists, Business Insider conducted a poll. The poll found that a plurality of respondents thought $3 billion dollars would be better spent on tax breaks for residents.

This poll is completely divorced from the situation though, and ironically, it shows that still no one agrees with the socialists, because its result indicates most people want lower taxes. Even so, the poll does not make clear that the $3 billion dollars "given" to Amazon should be compared to the $27 billion dollar increase in tax receipts from Amazon's entry. So NYC made a deal to increase their tax revenues by $24 billion on net. What if the poll asked "Should NYC lower Amazon's tax bill over ten years to guarantee $27 billion dollars in new tax revenue or offer no tax break and receive no new tax revenues?" What if he poll asked "How much should NYC be willing to give up to guarantee $27 billion dollars in new tax revenue?"

The option chosen by the plurality, though I doubt the respondents considered the implication, might arrest the exodus of New Yorkers from the state or incentivize more work, but Democrats and Socialists don't believe that tax cuts improve the economy or that workers respond by increasing their labor, nor do they decry the loss of the people who are fleeing for lower tax states.

Also, it's pretty hard to believe that either of those would offer the nearly 900% return that the tax incentives were offering, which would only grow as time went on.

The Old Switcheroo

Ask yourself how many times you've heard Democrats/liberals/the media say the Republicans have put forward no plan on health care.  I've heard this many, many times.  But then, out of the blue, in an effort to discredit Republicans from another angle, Dylan Matthews at Wonkblog says "In early 2009, Ryan introduced the Patients’ Choice Act as an alternative to the administration’s health-care reform efforts."  [Emphasis my own].  Hmm, that doesn't fit with what I've heard before.

This is a lot like the years of Democrats' talking about how the Bush tax cuts only benefited the rich and hurt the poor.  That's all I heard during the 2002-2004 elections.  But now Democrats want to extend the tax cuts for the middle class.  Why?  For years, they had no tax cut, now it's too important to lose!  Republicans should call them on this.  Get together a collection of Democrat quotes about the Bush tax cuts being only for the wealthy, then force them to admit that they were beneficial to the middle class.

Democrat: We must extend the tax cuts for the middle class and discontinue those for the rich.
Republican: Are you saying it would be detrimental to let the tax cuts expire for the middle class?
Democrat: Of course, the middle class are hard-working and being left behind.
Republican [Option 1]: So all those times when President Obama said we can't return to the failed policies of the past, he means all those policies except the tax cuts, which George W. Bush pushed and Republicans passed?
Republican [Option 2]: So if it's detrimental to allow them to expire now, it must have been a beneficial law that Republicans and President Bush passed 10 years ago.  Are you crediting Republicans with a good policy?