Cognitive Dissonance

As Andrew knows more than anyone, my speciality in college was not psychology. However, one term even I am aware of is Cognitive Dissonance. The term was created by the brilliant psychology Leon Festinger in his book The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. The basic premise of Cognitive Dissonance is this: 1) The existence of dissonance, being psychologically uncomfortable, will motivate the person to try to reduce the dissonance and achieve consonance. 2) When dissonance is present, in addition to trying to reduce it, the person will actively avoid situations and information which would likely increase the dissonance and seek out situations and information that reduce it. Obviously there are exceptions to this. Smoking comes to mind. I recently started the new political philosophy book The Two Percent Solution by journalist Matthew Miller. In the book, Miller who is an equal opportunity ripper of both Democrats and Republicans takes an interesting jab at modern Republicans. In the book he says a large chunk of the Republican party suffers from Cognitive Dissonance and this creates a barrier to progress. "Operating in a cocoon of like-minded souls, the right has developed a series of pseudo facts and incomplete arguments that they sincerely believe in order to protect themselves from the discomfort that would come from honestly facing the contradiction between a moral self-image that includes concern for the disadvantaged and budget plans that reveal this case to be a fraud," Miller writes. The book has example after example but one comes to mind. Last year, the Republicans were very angry when Obama talked about raising taxes on the wealthy Americans, the Conservative Heritage Foundation released this research on Who's Paying Taxes:

Percentiles Percent of Income Tax
Top 1% 36%
Top 5% 57%
Top 10% 68%
Top 20% 83%
Bottom 80% 17%

Although this is true, this is Cognitive Dissonance when we actually look at the full picture:

Percentiles Percent of Income Tax Percent of Income
Top 1% 36% 17%
Top 5% 57% 31%
Top 10% 68% 42%
Top 20% 83% 59%
Bottom 80% 17% 41%

Does that make any sense to you? The scale above was provided by the U.S. Congress Joint Committee on Taxation. My point to you is that even though the Top 1% of earners in America pay 36% of all taxes in America, as a percentage of their income, they are taxed the least! I am not the only one who thinks this is outrageous. I first learned about this Cognitive Dissonance when Warren Buffett, one of the top five wealthiest people in the world, pointed out that as a percentage, his secretary was paying more in taxes than he does.