Day: May 26, 2015

May 26, 2015 Dear Fellow Republican, I wanted to make sure I let you know that there are very few guest passes remaining for the 2015 Delaware Republican State Convention this coming Saturday morning. Convention delegates and other guests are excited to welcome Republican presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina as the keynote speaker, and I'd love to know that you're going to be there with us as we launch the 2016 campaign season. Simply click the link above and you'll be able to register online, but there are only a few passes left so you'll need to purchase your ticket immediately to ensure that you have reserved space for this Saturday's event. I hope to see you this weekend! Charlie Copeland Chairman Paid for by the Delaware Republican Party

They also found, as Markell had, retirees are getting a sweet deal through an assortment of tax breaks that ought to be revisited. They concluded it was fine for the state to rely on personal income taxes and corporate franchise taxes and fees as the mainstays of its revenue, although the personal income taxes could stand to have itemized deductions eliminated and the top marginal rate lowered. What they decided the state could use, though, was another steady revenue source. They identified a property tax as the best candidate, especially because Delaware has one of the lowest property tax burdens in the country. Nobody should get too excited yet about this idea, one way or the other. Here is where it pays to remember Markell's remark about the difference between the math and the politics. Other suggestions: Eliminate the estate tax. Shave the corporate income tax but nudge up the gross receipts tax. Recalibrate the realty transfer tax. There was one last conclusion to be drawn. People ought to pay attention to that Ken Simpler guy. He appears to be the driving force behind a lot of the analysis.

That in itself is significant, but if you add partisanship into the mix, the change is even more significant. As recently as 2009, 31% of self-identified Democrats also self-identified as "conservative" or "very conservative" on "social issues." That was a bit of an outlier, but the number was in the low twenties earlier. Now it's at 14%, even as the "liberal/very liberal" total has spiked to an all-time high of 53%. There's been a smaller but still significant shift among Republicans from "conservative'/very conservative" to "moderate," but the overall trend is being driven by Democrats. So whatever else this means, it means the temptation for Democrats to carve out some sort of "economic liberal/social conservative" position, which was very strong in the 1980s and 1990s in some culturally conservative areas of the country (typically those with a lot of white working class voters who retained enough union influence to keep them from defecting to the GOP entirely), has now pretty much vanished. And that's evident in the fact that most "struggles for the soul of the Democratic Party" these days are focused on economic issues.