Those who forget their inequality are doomed to repeat it.

On the day the first of Bush’s "economic stimulus" tax rebates hit some citizens’ bank accounts, it should be noted that this is the first federal tax rebate in history in a Presidential election year. No one in Washington previously has had the nerve to so openly pander for votes with money. Many economists believe that this will do little to jump start a recession economy, because any boost in consumer discretionary spending will be so short lived. In these tough times, much of this "free" money will simply go to pay off debt or be eaten up in higher prices for groceries and gasoline. (See update.) As a result of increasing the deficit, the government will then have to borrow the rebate money back from rich investors.

Rather than being motivated to use tax cuts and rebates to revive the economy, Bush and his party have a history of using them to pander. In spite of Republican mythology about the 2001 Bush tax cut, it was not about reviving the economy. It was conceived in 1999, when the economy was booming, as a way of getting votes in the 2000 election.

The main reason we have the 2008 rebates is that Republican are hoping lower income people – who have been economically the worst off during the Bush years – will mostly remember the rebate checks they got in July when they go to the polls in November. This sort of appeal worked for California Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger when he unseated the Democratic incumbent in the 2003 recall election. Schwarzenegger promised to roll back a vehicle licensing tax that had been raised due to the state's poor fiscal health. The tax of up to a few hundred dollars per vehicle hit low income people the hardest. Many minority voters chose a Republican for the first time in their lives.

So why did the Democratic Congress go along with this scam? Because, what could else could they do? Once the President proposed and promoted the rebate, opposing it would have resulted in Republicans campaigning against Democrats on the issue in the Fall. Too bad the Democrats did not have the fortitude to just say no.

A Princeton professor of politics recently described his study of the national economic priorities of the two parties over the past sixty years. Under Democratic Presidents, the actual incomes of the middle-class rose more than twice as fast as they did when Republicans owned the White House. The real incomes of the working-poor increased six times as fast during Democratic administrations! The affluent fared equally well with both parties. If Democrats had held the Presidency continuously since 1948, "incomes would be more equal now" than during even the most egalitarian era of the 1950's. The professor notes that "Every Republican president since Dwight Eisenhower presided over increasing economic inequality, while only one Democrat — Jimmy Carter — did so."

Why do many middle class and working poor voters not reward Democrats for their superior economic stewardship? The professor believes that Republican Presidents’ use of their new mandates to cut inflation and social spending – hurting the least well off – wear off after three years, producing a perceived boost in the next election year for those that have suffered the most. Democrats’ policies helping the poor and middle-class also run their course after three years, creating a perceived decline that coincides with the next election cycle. As Republicans know so well, the public has a short memory.