Bruce Bartlett, columnist for The Fiscal Times and former staff to Presidents Reagan and GHW Bush, took a look at 19 polls conducted over the three months asking Americans whether they think higher taxes should be part of a deficit reduction package. Guess what? Contrary to what the Republicans say, Americans support tax increases of one form or another to get the deficit under control. Here are the results of some of the polls Bartlett found.
A June 9 Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 61 percent of people believe higher taxes will be necessary to reduce the deficit.
A June 7 Pew poll found strong support for tax increases to reduce the deficit; 67 percent of people favor raising the wage cap for Social Security taxes, 66 percent raising income tax rates on those making more than $250,000, and 62 percent favor limiting tax deductions for large corporations. A plurality of people would also limit the mortgage interest deduction.
A May 12 Ipsos/Reuters poll found that three-fifths of people would support higher taxes to reduce the deficit.
A May 4 Quinnipiac poll found that people favor raising taxes on those making more than $250,000 to reduce the deficit by a 69 percent to 28 percent margin.
An April 29 Gallup poll found that only 20 percent of people believe the budget deficit should be reduced only by cutting spending; 76 percent say that higher taxes must play a role.
An April 25 USC/Los Angeles Times poll of Californians found that by about a 2-to-1 margin voters favor raising taxes to deal with the state’s budget problems over cutting spending alone.
An April 22 New York Times/CBS News poll found that 72 percent of people favor raising taxes on the rich to reduce the deficit. It also found that 66 percent of people believe tax increases will be necessary to reduce the deficit.
An April 20 Washington Post/ABC News poll found that by a 2-to-1 margin people favor a combination of higher taxes and spending cuts over spending cuts alone to reduce the deficit. It also found that 72 percent of people favor raising taxes on the rich to reduce the deficit and it is far and away the most popular deficit reduction measure.
Once again, the Republicans are out of step with the will of the people.
Read Bartlett’s article here:
No comments:
Post a Comment