Newsweek: Why the wealthy voted for Obama and higher taxes

Newweek ^ | 11/10/08 | Daniel Gross

[drzz]

For several years, I've been writing about Bushenfreude, the phenomenon of angry yuppies—who've hugely benefited from President Bush's tax cuts—funding angry, populist Democratic campaigns. I've theorized that people who work in financial services and related fields have become so outraged and alienated by the incompetence, crass social conservatism, and repeated insults to the nation's intelligence, of the Bush-era Republican Party, that they're voting with their hearts and heads instead of their wallets.

Last week's election was perhaps Bushenfreude's grandest day. As the campaign entered its final weeks, Barack Obama, who pledged to unite the country, singled out one group of people for ridicule: those making more than $250,000. At his rallies, he would ask for a show of hands of those making less than one-quarter of $1 million per year. Then he'd look around, laugh, and note that those in the virtuous majority would get their taxes cut, while the rich among them would be hit with a tax increase. And yet the exit polls show, the rich—and yes, if you make $250,000 or more you're rich—went for Obama by bigger margins than did the merely well-off. If the exit polls are to be believed, those making $200,000 or more (6 percent of the electorate) voted for Obama 52-46, while McCain won the merely well-off ($100,000 to $150,000 by a 51-48 margin and $150,000 to $200,000 by a 50-48 margin).

[sarasota]

I’ll never forget Biden leaning in to the interviewer who questioned tax increases saying (with his familiar leer): “It’s the patriotic thing to do.” No, Joe, it’s the idiotic thing to do.