From tax-free tips to student loan forgiveness, giving benefits to specific groups eats up fiscal capacity that could be used for more egalitarian forms of support
Clearly salience matters a ton and I don’t disagree with your assessment of the calculus they are making - just trying to point out there could be moves with nearly as high salience that are made more difficult to accomplish if we pile on the specific giveaways
Politicians want to buy votes as cheap as possible. Since kids can’t vote, they are rarely the cheapest votes to buy.
If $10B a year buys you enough waitresses to win a swing state politicians are going to do it regardless of the merits.
The problem with broad based benefits is it’s not enough to swing people’s votes. Does anyone really think “I wasn’t going to vote for X, but if I do my marginal tax rate will change 2%”.
Clearly salience matters a ton and I don’t disagree with your assessment of the calculus they are making - just trying to point out there could be moves with nearly as high salience that are made more difficult to accomplish if we pile on the specific giveaways
Politicians want to buy votes as cheap as possible. Since kids can’t vote, they are rarely the cheapest votes to buy.
If $10B a year buys you enough waitresses to win a swing state politicians are going to do it regardless of the merits.
The problem with broad based benefits is it’s not enough to swing people’s votes. Does anyone really think “I wasn’t going to vote for X, but if I do my marginal tax rate will change 2%”.