The grossly overpaid healthcare economist Jonathan Gruber has been pilloried for making fun of the ignorance of the American public in the healthcare debate that led up to the enactment of the Affordable Care Act. But he's right: When it comes to even minimally educating themselves about important public issues, the American public is astonishingly lazy. Most citizens don't even bother to vote in non-presidential-election years. They are civic slobs, even as they whine about what the government does.
36.4 percent of eligible citizens voted on Nov. 4. That means that less than 20 percent of those eligible to vote determined the the overall outcome of the national election.
Indeed, it seems that the more information that is available to citizens in the great swamp of the Internet, and the easier voting is made, the lazier they get as citizens.
18- to-29-year-olds made up 13 percent of the midterm electorate, down from 19 percent in the 2012 presidential election .
Some 22 percent of 2014 voters were 65 and older, up from 16 percent in 2012.
Thus you can expect legislation that favors the old (such as tax laws that give preference to investment income over earned income) to continue to dominate measures that favor the young.
