Focused Read 3 minutes
Koch-Backed Groups Are
Selling Trump’s Tax Cuts Door-to-Door Ahead of the Midterms
⚫ They’re spending $20 million to convince voters
of the benefits of the GOP’s central achievement.
Landon Porter has barely
uttered the words “tax reform” before the door slams in his face.
He stands on the front steps of the colonial-style home for a second.
Then he checks his smartphone, finds the next address, and knocks on
another door in this middle-class neighborhood in Fort Wayne, Ind.
Porter, 25, is the
grass-roots director of the Indiana branch of Americans for
Prosperity (AFP), a conservative public-advocacy group that’s
part of the political network built and partly financed by
billionaires Charles and David Koch.
Although he makes
no mention of the Koch brothers in his pitch, Porter’s
door-knocking campaign is part of a $20 million effort
by Koch-affiliated groups to boost support for the $1.5
trillion in tax cuts Congress approved last year.
(Emphasis is mine.)
Republicans have so
far struggled to make the party’s signature achievement this cycle
a winning campaign issue. Only 39 percent of respondents viewed the
tax law favorably in an April Gallup poll.
It won’t be easy. Tax policy is notoriously complicated. And if the
responses to Porter’s efforts on a recent Saturday are any
indication, people are skeptical.
“I don’t think my check has
changed,” says Linda Meredith, a 52-year-old bartender who was
among those visited. Meredith says she supported the tax changes.
Then she adds: “They’re going to benefit the rich.”
The bulk of the $20
million the Koch network is spending to promote the tax cut—roughly
equal to what it spent on getting it passed—will be for television
ads such as those AFP has run in Indiana, Missouri, and North
Dakota targeting Democratic senators in states won by
President Trump.
But a key component will be door-to-door
canvass campaigns.
... On this day, they’re targeting independent and
conservative-leaning people. “We’re calling it the American pay
raise,” Porter tells Abe Schwab, a self-described independent, as
children play noisily in the background. “The child deduction has
doubled,” Porter points out eagerly.
Schwab, -- an ethics professor, -- stops him right there. -- “It’s far more complicated than that,”
he says. Schwab and his wife have three kids, and they earned about
$100,000 last year. Under the new law, they’ll lose their personal
exemptions—and a new, larger standard deduction won’t cover the
loss of that benefit, he says.
Schwab, 41, tells Porter
that his rough estimates suggest he’ll see a slight tax increase
under the law.
In a follow-up interview with Bloomberg, Schwab goes
through the numbers in detail—applying its new rates and expanded
child tax credits—and finds that the legislation would have
actually lowered his 2017...
Still, that doesn’t mean
Schwab is sold on the changes. “It’s in my narrowly defined
self-interest,” he says. “But within the broader context, I don’t
think it’s in the public interest.”
An important target for
Porter and his crew is Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly, viewed as one
of his party’s most vulnerable senators.
Three well-funded
Republicans are running in a May 8 primary to win the right to
challenge him in November.
AFP has already run more than 4,460 TV
spots this year in Indiana criticizing Donnelly’s vote against the
tax overhaul, according to data from Kantar Media’s CMAG, which
tracks political advertising.
The group has run 2,465 spots against
Senator Claire McCaskill in Missouri and
1,235 criticizing Senator
Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota.
(Emphasis is mine.)
After each visit, AFP
workers log answers from voters to three questions: Were they aware
of the tax legislation? Do they support it? And do they think
Donnelly’s vote against it hurt Hoosiers? At unanswered doors,
workers leave literature highlighting Donnelly’s vote against the
legislation and urging voters to “tell him to make the tax relief
permanent.”
... the AFP door-knockers do find some supporters.
“More money in my pocket is always a good thing,” says Ryan
Waldroup, 38, an electrical engineer.
Asked later whether he’s
noticed a larger paycheck, he says no. “It went up, but not a
significant amount.”
______________________________________________
BOTTOM LINE - Only 39
percent of Americans approve of the $1.5 trillion tax cut passed by
Republicans last year. So the Koch network is spending big to remind
people of its benefits.
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