47 Percenters are actually 99 percenters

In the wake of their 2012 Election defeat, Republicans and conservative commentators were saying that Americans had selfishly voted their own economic self interest and that this was proof that the nation had suddenly changed into lazy people that just wanted to be given stuff. 

They claim that the election was stolen because a slim majority of voters are getting handouts from the government, while everyone else is working hard to create businesses and jobs.

It's a great story, but it's completely inaccurate.

Unforturnately, the rich vote Republican because they are keeping their taxes down and paying the big corporations subsidies, or giving them huge tax breaks. Alternately, they are proposing removing (or not enforcing) regulations on big companies.  This would tend to unburden corporations from a lot of additional effort in complying with regulations, and would tend to make corporations more profitable.  Some of those regulations are there to insure that corporations play fair and don't trash the environment, so throwing out the regulations would no doubt allow for some abuse of smaller businesses, workers, and the environment.  I'm all for some regulations being eased, we have some ridiculous laws in this country.  I wish they would pass laws removing the laws and regulations from the books rather than gutting them without review or through inaction.

My point is that you could accuse any side of an election of voting because the government was going to "give them stuff".  That's the unfortunate side effect of democracy.  Politicians certainly have learned it well.  Each election cycle is full of people being promised goodies by the government.

The biggest and best example of a government program that people on the right are in love with is our defense industry.  There are plenty of non-military people out there without defense jobs or defense contracts that support this.  Many people that genuinely believe that our military capability either keeps us safe or keeps bad people of countries in the world from doing bad things.  However, just as Republican President and WWII war hero Dwight Eisenhower warned, you don't want to build a defense industry that is so powerful that it becomes the tail that wags the dog (government).  People see defense as a jobs and pro-growth industry.  What people forget is that in order to justify a big defense industry, you have to actually use your military.  This means that there are ideologues out there that will push for conflicts given the slightest provacation in order to justify all the time and money spent on military power.  The problem with jumping into a fight at the slightest provacation is that after a while people realize that you are scary and dangerous and they arm themselves in order to protect themselves against you.  I can totally understand why Iran would want nuclear weapons.  It's the only way they could operate exactly as they want without fear of retalliation.  Think about Pakistan.  My guess is that we probably would have invaded them by now if it had not been for their nukes.  Where does this end?  If you look back on lots of wars in history, the best most recent one being WWI, you'll see that a situation where all sides are convinced that a war will come usually results in just such a war.  People spend a lot of time and money getting ready, and then some inevitable trigger occurs and the war kicks off to a grand start!  Hooray!  We'll kick there ass now!  However, the resulting war inevitably eats up a lot of lives, destroys a lot of property and environment, and then takes years for both sides to recover from.

War is stupid.  Defense spending is a waste.  Can you imagine any politician getting elected if he stood up and said such a thing?

I don't think the average voter cheers on war and wants massive military build-ups.  I think the average voter is swayed by a lot of public discource that makes it impossible to say otherwise.

Many people tell themselves that they are voting for a person because they trust them to run the country in the right way.  What they don't consider is that the "right way" has certain advantages to themselves.  Imagine people being told the truth, that we're going to have to pay more taxes and take less from government programs if we hope to get not just the deficit, but the debt under control.  Otherwise, it's like saying you are going to either diet or exercise, but you can't be bothered to do both.  You may make some marginal gains by hacking away at only one side of the problem, but you can't be expected to make dramatic results unless you attack both sides.

So before you level your accusations at the cursed other side about their selfish motives, please try to explain how your own motives are not so selfish.  If you are a Republican, are you willing to pay some more in taxes to get rid of the deficit?  If you are a Democrat, are you willing to control government programs that expand each year automatically without any restraint or controls?  We're like one of those Siamese Twins with one body and two heads.  One side wants to diet and the other wants to exercise, but it doesn't matter because the other side is blocking the body from doing both.  We're doomed if we can't realize we're all in this together and be motivated to work harder for less until the problem is fixed.