| Abstract: |
In a recent edition of Perspectives on Politics, Larry Bartels examines the
high levels of support for tax cuts signed into law by President Bush in 2001.
In so doing, he characterizes the opinions of “ordinary people” as lacking “a
moral basis” and as being based on “simple-minded and sometimes misguided
considerations of self interest.” He concludes that “the strong plurality
support for Bush’s tax cut...is entirely attributable to simple ignorance.”
Our analysis of the same data reveals different results. We show that for a
large and politically relevant class of respondents – people who describe
themselves as “conservative” or “Republican” – rising information levels
increase support for the tax cuts. Indeed, using Bartels’ measure of political
information, we show that the Republican respondents rated “most informed”
supported the tax cuts at extraordinarily high levels (over 96%). For these
citizens, Bartels’ claim that “better-informed respondents were much more
likely to express negative views about the 2001 tax cut” is simply untrue. We
then show that Bartels’ results depend on a very strong assumption about how
information affects public opinion. He restricts all respondents -- whether
liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat – to respond to increasing
information levels in identical ways. In other words, he assumes that if more
information about the tax cut makes liberals less likely to support it, then
conservatives must follow suit. This assumption is very presumptive about the
policy trade-offs that different people should make. Our analysis, by
contrast, allows people of different partisan or ideological identities to
react to higher information levels in varying ways. This flexibility has many
benefits, one of which is a direct test of Bartels’ restrictive assumption. We
demonstrate that the assumption is untrue. Examined several ways, our findings
suggest that much of the support for the tax cut was attributable to something
other than “simple ignorance.” Bartels’ approach is based on a very strong
presumption about how citizens should think and what they should think about.
We advocate a different approach, one that takes questions of public policy
seriously while respecting ideological and partisan differences in opinion and
interest. Indeed, citizens have reasons for the opinions and interests they
have. We may or may not agree with them. However, we, as social scientists,
can contribute more by offering reliable explanations of these reasons than we
can by judging them prematurely. By turning our attention to explaining
differences of opinion, we can help to forge a stronger and more credible
foundation for progress in meeting critical social needs. |