As someone who politically identifies as conservative, I have struggled to understand why so many liberals my age want a 74-year-old white man to win the 2016 Presidential election. After some bipartisan research and my own analysis, I think I have found some answers. Bernie Sanders proposed a 90 percent marginal income tax rate, and as a political science major, this sounded so outrageous to me that I had to look into it further. Currently, the highest marginal income tax rate is 39.6 percent. With a 50 percent increase, this number shocks people, but it is important to know that it would be the marginal, not 90 percent of your total income. Sanders' proposal would be a clear redistribution of wealth, in a typical, "take from the rich to give to the poor," socialist fashion.
Maybe I'm just being a typical conservative by calling Sanders a socialist, but on May 26 he compared his plan to President Eisenhower's tax plan by saying, "If my memory is correct, when radical socialist Dwight D. Eisenhower was president, the highest marginal tax rate was something like 90 percent." It was 92 percent in the 1950s. From this comment, one can deduce that Sanders considers his plan a radical socialist policy.
It is important to understand why someone like Sanders would appear to have a vendetta against the top one percent. Perhaps Sanders is solely interested in addressing income inequality, but I believe there is an ulterior motive behind this policy. If you research biographical information on Sanders, you find out that he was the son of two Jewish-Polish immigrants. The Jewish community has, historically, been demonized and mistreated, and immigrants also struggle to maintain their identity in the United States, especially in New York where Sanders is from. Just with this information, it makes sense that Sanders would want to target the wealthy. It's not necessarily political; it could be personal. As a conservative, it is my theory that Sanders wants to drag everyone down to the same level in order to make himself feel better. As a political scientist, it is my theory that Sanders is seeking to narrow the income gap to make life more "fair" for everyone.
Growing up in a hardworking, middle-class family has taught me that life isn't fair. It is my own personal belief that it is not in the government's realm of authority or responsibility to make life fair for me or anyone else. At 18, I took initiative and got a part-time job to aid in paying for my own college education, so I could lift some of the burden off of my parents' shoulders. People are often quick to generalize millennials as entitled, and while that may be true for some, it is not true for all.
That brings me to my theory on why millennials want Bernie Sanders to win the presidency. It isn't necessarily because they are entitled, and it probably isn't just because they're lazy, either. I think people my age want Sanders as president because they do not understand what it means to work hard for what they have. I blame their parents, not liberalism. Millennials who believe tuition-free college is a great idea have probably never worked for what they have, and if they have worked, they have probably never taken a look at their pay statements. The amount of income tax, alone, that is taken out of my paychecks is ridiculous -- averaging about $100 per paycheck. It is infuriating to work so hard to pay for my own education, my own car, my own lifestyle, etc, only to have the money I earned taken away from me to give to someone who doesn't work, but is perfectly capable. Sure, people argue that jobs are hard to find, but according to President Obama and economic reports, the unemployment rate is as low as it has been in quite some time, at 4.9 percent as of January 2016. So if there are clearly so many available jobs, why would people need to freeload off of hardworking Americans?
Bottom line -- pay attention to politics even if you don't care because this election will determine your future, and the future of the United States.
