From: gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk (G.J. McCaughan)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Subject: Re:      RUSH - More Good News
Date: 10 Nov 92 01:03:17 GMT
Organization: U of Cambridge, England

In article <1992Nov9.134646.28590@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>, jlaplant@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (John R Laplante) writes:

[> > is me, and > >> is Michael Kline, by the way]

> >He does have a majority; a large one. Or is this about Bush? I don't
> >understand.
> 
>    HARDLY. Or at least it depends on where the majority is that you
>    are talking about. Nationally, Clinton DID NOT receive a majority
>    of the vote; only a plurality voted for him. More voted for
>    Bush and Perot combined. In other words, more people voted for
>   someone OTHER than Clinton than voted for him.

Point taken. But there were three candidates, after all. Clinton got a lot more
than 1/3 of the votes, and he got a lot more than Bush.

> >>     California - Voters rejected by 58% to 42% a "Soak the Rich Plan"
> >> against business., The proposal included breaks for the less affluent.
> >> (Exactly what Bill Clinton proposes to do...)
> >>     and - Repealed a "Tax on Snacks", a part of 1991 revenue raising
> >> package.
>   
> >
> >"against business". Really unbiased reporting here, I see. Come on; 58-42
> >is a pretty narrow margin, and California is a more than usually affluent
> >state. You'd expect this sort of thing. I'm surprised the margin wasn't
> >more. 
> 
>    1. No matter what else you called the california proposal, anyting
>       which raised taxes that much on business WAS "against business."

So you say. I don't know how much the raise in question was going to be, since
Mr Kline (or Mr Limbaugh, who I think is being quoted here) declined to tell us.
And there might be motives other than malice for proposing a large increase in
taxes. I expect its proponents might have said "for the poor" or something, but
you seem to be suggesting it was proposed out of some kind of dislike of business
and a wish for business in the state to fail; seems unlikely to me.

If it was a really huge increase, then the fact that people voted against it
doesn't say anything much about their opinion of smaller tax increases. Is it
known that Clinton wants equally large tax increases? No.

>    2. Me thinks we have an inconsisitency here. 
>       Clinton got less than 50% of the vote, and he has a "landslide."
>       Or, as the poster put it, a "huge majority."

I said "large".

>       The soak the rich proposal (remember, we're talking about a _12%_
>       income tax -- and that's only from the state) is rejected by
>       58% of the voters, and that's a "pretty narrow margin."
>     
>       Better withdraw that comment about Clinton having a "huge majority."

Why? Clinton got something over 40% of the vote, I think, with two other
candidates. The tax increase to which you refer had a similar proportion
of votes (I think slightly less), and was one of two options (yes or no)
rather than one of three.

-- 
Gareth McCaughan     Dept. of Pure Mathematics & Mathematical Statistics,
gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk  Cambridge University, England.    [Research student]
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