Democrats: Party of the Rich

I stated here several times over the years that the Democrat party has become the party of the rich.  So imagine the look on my face when Don Lambro, over The Washington Times this morning produces a study which says precisely that:

In a state-by-state, district-by-district comparison of wealth concentrations based on Internal Revenue Service income data, Michael Franc, vice president of government relations at the Heritage Foundation, found that the majority of the nation’s wealthiest congressional jurisdictions were represented by Democrats.

He also found that more than half of the wealthiest households were concentrated in the 18 states where Democrats hold both Senate seats.
“If you take the wealthiest one-third of the 435 congressional districts, we found that the Democrats represent about 58 percent of those jurisdictions,” Mr. Franc said.

…

Mr. Franc’s study also showed that contrary to the Democrats’ tendency to define Republicans as the party of the rich, “the vast majority of unabashed conservative House members hail from profoundly middle-income districts.”

Just recently, I remarked that John Edwards would do significantly better among the poor, were he to have his nose surgically lowered.  It seems I underestimated the position of Mr. Edwards; he’s doing as well as he is, because with his snobbery he is playing to the new base of the Democrat party… the rich.
Personally, I’d give a bundle for information on how those upper income brackets that claim the Democrat party as their own break down, in terms of professions.  How many of them, I wonder, our government workers of some sort ; education, bureaucracy, and so on, or those whose degree of ‘rich’ depends utterly on the largess of government?  I’m willing to bet it’s a fairly high percentage.

But the crassness of the Democrats gets exposed, here. While they’ve been complaining about George W. Bush and his supposed ‘tax cuts for the wealthy….

….the strongest manifestation of the influence that the Democrats’ wealthiest constituencies are wielding over party policy came earlier this month as Democratic leaders were considering a proposal to offset revenue losses from AMT repeal by raising taxes on hedge-fund managers, many of whom are major contributors to the Democratic Party.

A “stopgap” bill authored by Mr. Rangel to tax hedge-fund compensation at 35 percent as regular income rather than the current 15 percent capital-gains rate, which passed the House Nov. 9, appears to be going nowhere with Senate Democrats.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has raised tens of millions of dollars from Wall Street financiers and hedge-fund managers, opposes Mr. Rangel’s plan. Earlier this month, Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, the chairman of the tax-writing Finance Committee, said the tax increase was a bad idea and could not pass the Senate.

…

Mr. Franc thinks this turnabout by Democrats, whose campaign mantra has long been to tax the rich more, is only the beginning.

“Increasingly, we will see Democrats responding to the economic demands of this particular upper-income constituency,” he said.

Gee. Democrats trying to have it both ways.  Who’d have thought it?

BBCT: Memeorandum, which has more discussion, including what has to be the line of the day from The Confederate Yankee….

It isn’t by any means bad or wrong that Democrats aspire to wealth and success, but is is a bit hypocritical for them to label themselves the party of the poor as they carefully sip overpriced bistro coffee to keep from spilling it on the leather interior of their late-model European sedans.

Ain’t it real….