I've always been astonished how easily the public is fooled into voting against their own interests.
Several years ago, President Reagan got a 'tax cut' passed and people applauded. But unless they are millionaires or billionaires, they actually got a tax hike instead because the income tax was made less progressive, while Social Security taxes were hiked. Most people still don't realize this.
The progressive income tax hits the rich harder, that's the way it was designed. So when it was made less progressive, the money to run the government had to come from somewhere else. And that somewhere else was taxes on the middle class, and cuts in services for the poor. In short, if you're not a billionaire you got screwed.
Things have gotten worse under the Bush "tax cuts" that make the rich richer at your expense.
As Robert Kuttner, co-editor of The American Prospect, said in the Boston Globe:
"So, if your college loan payments increase, or your Medicare fails to cover a needed treatment, or affordable housing has vanished because federal subsidies have been cut to almost nothing, or your local government increases fees and property taxes or cuts services because federal aid has been cut, you can thank the Republican program of tax cuts for the rich for depleting federal revenues."