These core conservative voters, Greenberg wrote recently, fear “that big government is meant to create rights and dependency and electoral support from mostly minorities who will reward the Democratic Party with their votes.” Much like Mitt Romney’s musings about the 47 percent, these voters see an ominous cycle of Democrats promising benefits “to increase dependency” among mostly minority voters who empower them to win elections and then provide yet more benefits (like a path to citizenship for immigrants here illegally). Obama’s health care law looms to them as the tipping point toward a permanent Democratic advantage built on dependency and demographic change.
Greenberg’s analysis echoes the findings of other scholars, such as Harvard sociologist Theda Skocpol, whose studies have concluded that the tea party’s most ardent priority is reducing government transfer payments to those it considers undeserving. Earlier United Technologies/NJ Congressional Connection polling has found that the older and noncollege whites now central to the GOP coalition mostly see health care reform as a program that will benefit the poor rather than people like them (though, in fact, many working-class whites lack insurance).
House GOP leaders flailing for an exit strategy this week are again suggesting broad negotiations that will constrain entitlement programs such as Medicare. But our latest polling shows older and downscale whites overwhelmingly resist changes in Medicare or Social Security, which they consider benefits they have earned—and pointedly distinguish from transfer programs.
Those findings suggest that the real fight under way isn’t primarily about the size of government but rather who benefits from it.
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