This is the last installment of the introductory travels of McMammah, or "how did the product of comfortable, middle-class, Northeastern Republicans become a liberal Democrat railing against modern conservative Republicans?". If indeed one can use "modern" and "conservative Republican" in the same sentence. How did the transformation begin that turned that individual into a "middle-class, middle-aged male, mad as hell?"
As I came of age and went through early adulthood in the 1980's America was going through profound changes that haunt us even now. Being in the middle of the changes, and not extremely conversant with economic theories and politics, there was no real frame of reference for what was happening. It is only with the passing of years, and the additional knowledge and perspective that should be products of those years, that you can make sense of the changes. Many of these were highlighted in previous installments.
There was one final episode that has haunted me to this day. At the time it was not viewed as having anything to do with politics or economics or public policy. No, as with too many of us, the analysis stopped at the nose in front of my face. It was viewed not as a public issue, but as a private failing.
First the background. My wife and I were married in 1985. We had met while both working for one of the major insurance companies that had its headquarters in the Hartford, CT area. By the time we were married my wife was still at this company, while I had moved on to work at another insurance company in Hartford.
After being married for a little over a year we decided it was time to start a family. Sure enough we figured something out because soon my wife was expecting. It was during this time that the incident occurred.
Now while dating, and the first year or so of marriage, our tax returns, whether filed individually or jointly, were fairly unremarkable. Some years we owed a little in taxes, some years we got a little back in the form of a small refund. So sitting down to fill out our tax return was a chore and a nuisance, put off due to procrastination, not because it was cause for trepidation.
That changed the year my wife was expecting our first child.
I put off doing them as I always did until it was early April and they couldn't be delayed any longer. I went through the usual steps and got to the end and could not believe what I was looking at. We owed $2,700.
Now I had heard that there had been some big tax law changes taking effect that year. But like most people paying some attention, but not close attention, I figured that was the extra $5 a paycheck I saw in my take home pay once the new tax law took effect. I had heard that the interest on credit card debt was no longer deductible, but we didn't have very high credit card balances at that time, so I thought nothing of it.
My wife was unbelieving when I told her. I double-checked the math. She peppered me with questions. Had I included all the charitable donations? Medical expenses? Had I missed any deductions? We went over it and over it, but it kept coming out the same. Not a few hundred back or owing a few hundred. No, we owed $2,700. And mind you between the two of us we probably had joint gross incomes of about $50,000 at the time.
My biggest memory of that incident, the one etched forever in my brain, is of me sitting at the kitchen table, reviewing the 1040 packet, looking at all the instructions one last time, while my wife, approximately 5 or 6 months pregnant, sat on the couch sobbing and pleading out loud, "what did we do wrong? What did we do wrong?"
We would need to dip into our investment and savings accounts from work. Moving into a larger house, and out of the multi-family home we were living in, would have to be pushed out to the future.
If you ever want to feel inadequate, or small, as a man, then sit there listening to your wife sobbing and wondering where you went wrong with something. And you have no answer for her.
And of course I thought I had screwed up. I had to, who else could it be? We had not changed anything on our tax forms and yet here we were looking at such a drastically different result than we had been experiencing. How could I not have known? How could I not have seen it coming?
Meanwhile at the office I discovered I was not the only person experiencing this tax liability shock. No, other co-workers, all college-educated, white collar professionals, mind you, were experiencing similar results. From the various conversations it was clear what the change had been. We had continued to claim ourselves as a dependent on our W-9 forms for withholding. Apparently with the big tax changes of the 1986 tax act that didn't work anymore. So yes you received a minuscule increase in your take home pay, but then you were clobbered on the tax tables when it was time to file. The only way out of this was to no longer claim yourself as a dependent. So my wife and I both changed our enrollment forms to claim zero dependents. And our take home pay dropped. But at least there were no major shocks on the next April 15th.
And that's where things stood until I began to get engaged politically as my family grew and I worried not only about my future but those of my sons. As I witnessed and experienced the upheavals hitting the American middle class, and as I read more about the dramatically rising incomes and wealth of those already at the top and the stagnant wages and salaries of the rest of us. As I sensed and then saw the evidence of shrinking opportunity for the average American. And then one day it hit me.
One day I realized I finally had an answer to my wife's plaintive pleading question from all those years ago. I finally knew where we had gone wrong. I finally knew what we had done wrong.
We had made the mistake of being middle class in Ronald Reagan's America.
As I came of age and went through early adulthood in the 1980's America was going through profound changes that haunt us even now. Being in the middle of the changes, and not extremely conversant with economic theories and politics, there was no real frame of reference for what was happening. It is only with the passing of years, and the additional knowledge and perspective that should be products of those years, that you can make sense of the changes. Many of these were highlighted in previous installments.
There was one final episode that has haunted me to this day. At the time it was not viewed as having anything to do with politics or economics or public policy. No, as with too many of us, the analysis stopped at the nose in front of my face. It was viewed not as a public issue, but as a private failing.
First the background. My wife and I were married in 1985. We had met while both working for one of the major insurance companies that had its headquarters in the Hartford, CT area. By the time we were married my wife was still at this company, while I had moved on to work at another insurance company in Hartford.
After being married for a little over a year we decided it was time to start a family. Sure enough we figured something out because soon my wife was expecting. It was during this time that the incident occurred.
Now while dating, and the first year or so of marriage, our tax returns, whether filed individually or jointly, were fairly unremarkable. Some years we owed a little in taxes, some years we got a little back in the form of a small refund. So sitting down to fill out our tax return was a chore and a nuisance, put off due to procrastination, not because it was cause for trepidation.
That changed the year my wife was expecting our first child.
I put off doing them as I always did until it was early April and they couldn't be delayed any longer. I went through the usual steps and got to the end and could not believe what I was looking at. We owed $2,700.
Now I had heard that there had been some big tax law changes taking effect that year. But like most people paying some attention, but not close attention, I figured that was the extra $5 a paycheck I saw in my take home pay once the new tax law took effect. I had heard that the interest on credit card debt was no longer deductible, but we didn't have very high credit card balances at that time, so I thought nothing of it.
My wife was unbelieving when I told her. I double-checked the math. She peppered me with questions. Had I included all the charitable donations? Medical expenses? Had I missed any deductions? We went over it and over it, but it kept coming out the same. Not a few hundred back or owing a few hundred. No, we owed $2,700. And mind you between the two of us we probably had joint gross incomes of about $50,000 at the time.
My biggest memory of that incident, the one etched forever in my brain, is of me sitting at the kitchen table, reviewing the 1040 packet, looking at all the instructions one last time, while my wife, approximately 5 or 6 months pregnant, sat on the couch sobbing and pleading out loud, "what did we do wrong? What did we do wrong?"
We would need to dip into our investment and savings accounts from work. Moving into a larger house, and out of the multi-family home we were living in, would have to be pushed out to the future.
If you ever want to feel inadequate, or small, as a man, then sit there listening to your wife sobbing and wondering where you went wrong with something. And you have no answer for her.
And of course I thought I had screwed up. I had to, who else could it be? We had not changed anything on our tax forms and yet here we were looking at such a drastically different result than we had been experiencing. How could I not have known? How could I not have seen it coming?
Meanwhile at the office I discovered I was not the only person experiencing this tax liability shock. No, other co-workers, all college-educated, white collar professionals, mind you, were experiencing similar results. From the various conversations it was clear what the change had been. We had continued to claim ourselves as a dependent on our W-9 forms for withholding. Apparently with the big tax changes of the 1986 tax act that didn't work anymore. So yes you received a minuscule increase in your take home pay, but then you were clobbered on the tax tables when it was time to file. The only way out of this was to no longer claim yourself as a dependent. So my wife and I both changed our enrollment forms to claim zero dependents. And our take home pay dropped. But at least there were no major shocks on the next April 15th.
And that's where things stood until I began to get engaged politically as my family grew and I worried not only about my future but those of my sons. As I witnessed and experienced the upheavals hitting the American middle class, and as I read more about the dramatically rising incomes and wealth of those already at the top and the stagnant wages and salaries of the rest of us. As I sensed and then saw the evidence of shrinking opportunity for the average American. And then one day it hit me.
One day I realized I finally had an answer to my wife's plaintive pleading question from all those years ago. I finally knew where we had gone wrong. I finally knew what we had done wrong.
We had made the mistake of being middle class in Ronald Reagan's America.