Despite what the GOP keeps telling us, Bruce Bartlett has compiled a list of 19 different polls taken since January that demonstrate that Americans support increasing taxes in order to reduce the deficit and inequality. Americans may not love tax increases, but they understand their necessity for deficit reduction.
In the June 9 ABC News poll 61% of Americans believe higher taxes will be necessary to reduce the deficit, and 57% of those polled said that deficit reduction should include both tax increases and spending cuts.
A Pew poll found that more people blame the nation’s involvement in wars than tax cuts or spending for the deficit. The poll also found wide support for increasing taxes, as 67% said the more high earners income should be subject to being taxed for Social Security, and 66% support raising taxes on incomes over $250,000, and 62% support closing corporate tax loopholes.
A Bloomberg poll taken in May found that only 33% of those surveyed thought that it would be possible to lower the deficit without raising taxes, 64% expressed the belief that it isn’t possible to lower the deficit without raising taxes.
An April CBS News/NY Times poll showed that 72% of people favored raising taxes on the wealthy in order to reduce the deficit. A March NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 81% of those surveyed would support a tax on millionaires that would be used for deficit reduction, and 68% supported eliminating the Bush tax cuts on those who make over $250,000.
Check out Bruce Bartlett’s blog to see all the polls.
There are a few qualifiers that come in to play on this issue. Americans will always support tax increases as long as they are on someone else. Since the vast majority of Americans aren’t millionaires, it isn’t a big surprise that so many citizens favor additional taxes on them. Secondly, the American people are realistic. They tend to support a mixture of spending cuts and tax increases. This is a matter of common sense to most people. If you are in debt, you aren’t going to get out of debt by only spending less. At some point, you have to earn more money in order to pay your bills.
Those who advocate for program cuts have a valid point when they suggest that the nation can never get out of debt if it keeps on spending, but they negate their own point with the ridiculous belief that tax cuts pay for themselves and don’t hurt our national bottom line. It is a matter of common sense. If a person is in debt and their income gets cut in half, they will never have the resources to pay off what they owe.
Where Republicans find themselves on the wrong side of the fence is when they attack popular social programs like Medicare and Social Security. Hard line conservative ideology teaches a hatred of the social safety net, but to an overwhelming majority of Americans these programs are a deeply valued component of our modern social contract.
When Republicans propose a cuts (tax and programs) only agenda, they are not being realistic. Every time John Boehner or any other Republican claims that the American people don’t support any increase in taxes, he and they are not telling the complete truth. The American people may not love the idea of a tax increase, but they understand that it has to be part of the deficit reduction solution.
The Republican Party may be playing to their base with their hard line cuts ideology, but most Americans disagree. For all the talk among the pundit class, and the hope among Republicans that Obama will be blamed if there is no deal on the debt ceiling, the polling tells a different story.
If the president offers a mix of tax increases and spending cuts and Republicans walk away from it, they will be blamed for trying to impose their radical and unrealistic agenda on the American people.
Once again, the collective Republican ideological blind spot on taxation is pushing them out of the American mainstream.
Related posts:
House Republican response to polls:
*Sticks fingers in ears.* “LALALALA, I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”
“We can’t tax the job creators!” Cut to ten years later, those “job creators’ took their jobs oversees along with their tax dodging bank accounts.
They have had lower taxes for 7-8 years now – since GWB and they haven’t brought back any jobs, they have just banked the money. It sounds believeable, but it doesn’t deal with the greed that they have exhibited.
I say tax them.
they haven’t brought back any jobs,
How can this be, when President Obama claims to have created over 2 million private sector jobs? Either they haven’t created the jobs, or the President is taking credit for something that hasn’t happened.
8.8 million jobs were lost between January 2008 and February,2010. This is the time period from the start of our economic depression until we started to see an upturn in February, 2010. President Obama’s statistics are correct–2.1 million people have gone back to work. We still have a long way to go, but raising taxes and closing loopholes on the wealthy and corporations will help buy us the time to get more Americans back to work, without losing the safety net that so many of the unemployed still need.
You’ve bought that old line. Job Creation does not come from the Corporations … it comes from the demand of the consumer … if consumers have no leverage and all the wealth is vested at the top … than demand dissolves; jobs dissolves. Right now 25% of the Nations wealth is held in the hands of 1% (held not being circulated) in some sort of gambit insisting that they need leverage to remain “competetive”. What are they competing for .. yes the consumer dollar (problem is the standard American is in debt that is drownding them and crushing them (they don’t have the dollars and no leverage themselves) … if they don’t have money or their credit is maxxed … demand diminishes to closing list of necessities; jobs are lost. If 25% of nations wealth is held in 1% of the people … then its obvious that even if they have 30% or 40% its not going to trickle down (that theory fails consistently) if it were successful it would already be not merely trickling but flowing. The job creators are not the dime a dozen over engradized narcissistic self described super hero CEO’s; the job creators are the consumers. Once some of these GOP idiots stop participating in the robbery and war on the middle class … then perhaps some prosperity might grow, but as long as they are merely schills for global corporations that could care less if the America economically is driven into being a third world nation the only thing they will eventually net for their treason (and yes participating into what amounts to an economic war against the bulk of US Citizens is treason) is hopefully that indictment with the self same sentence that comes after verdict.
Some sort of “gambit”? No a purposeful scheme.
well said the rest of you shhhhhhhhhh. i just had to comment
The “job creators” are leeches. They want to make money in this country but they don’t want to support it with their taxes.
The “job creators” want everyone desperate to work for peanuts and under poor conditions. They have no interest in creating decent jobs. Of course, this is going to backfire on them when people cannot afford to buy their products. Wal-Mart has already discovered this, hence they are experimenting with more upscale stores to compete with Target and supporting a higher minimum wage – but not through the goodness of their hearts or any decency, of course.
The president is going to make them look like fools in the end. The GOP plays to the tea party that is disappearing
The president needs to stand firm. Let the Republicans make the U.S. default on its debt and let THEM take the blame. ALL the blame. That is the only moral position for him to take at this time.
[...] polls show voters want taxes on wealthy raised 19 Different Polls Show That Americans Support Tax Increases To Cut Deficit __________________ "The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, [...]
I work in the welfare industry….trust me…if you all did you would understand its not the big bad business to solely blame…its a mixed bag of issues and really…raising taxes will just provide politicians more revenue to fuck up my kids future. 19 polls..whatever. Numbers can be used and screwed however a source chooses to do so.
Yeah not like defunding health and education is going to hurt your kids future; it’s going to make him more free (to live in poverty and die of lack of access).
The only thing I can say is that I hope you don’t work in the “welfare industry” for long. It certainly doesn’t need someone with your unsophisticated attitude within it to screw up more people in need.
I, too, have worked in Family Services(welfare), and it is not an industry. All aspects of our country’s safety nets have encountered problems and fraud, but cutting and abolishing the whole program is not a solution. Most Americans agree to raising taxes on the wealthiest, closing loopholes in the tax code that only benefit the rich and corporations, and many middle class, also, don’t mind paying their fair share to maintain our standard of living. I don’t understand your reference to ” more revenue to fuck up my kids future”–are you talking about young people you work with or your own children? More revenue to maintain and improve programs for at risk children and adults is a good thing. And if it is your own family you are speaking of, I know that “welfare-ugly term” workers are not paid nearly enough for their work, so according to the President’s plan, your taxes would not go up. As a final thought, you sound very burned-out and with no compassion, maybe you should consider a career change.
News for you: The Bush administration f’ed up your kids future. It’s already been done. Republicans are just trying to finish the job.
I’m guessing–no wait, it’s not a guess, if the repubs had 1, 9, or 19 polls out there backing their position it would be on Rush, Glen, and the other mouthpieces of the republican party, endlessly, day after day. I haven’t heard any noise about these polls and it’s especially quiet from the democrats, they should be trumpeting it—LOUDLY.
“…and the other mouthpieces of the republican party…”
In other words: EVERY major, mainstream news outlet.
The problem is that many of these people do not vote and we have a system built on disproportional representation, e.g. the electoral college, Senate, gerrymandering, winner-take-all, etc.
“Those who advocate for program cuts have a valid point when they suggest that the nation can never get out of debt if it keeps on spending…”
Well, you gotta spend money to make money. It’s called investment.
The government doesn’t make money. And when every policy you have looks to soak it to those who do create wealth in the private sector, you end up with what we have now. We need serious cuts to the budget all around before we consider any tax increase. To do otherwise would be akin to giving an alcoholic a bottle while driving them to an AA meeting.
No, the government does not make money, but if more people are working at decent jobs and paying taxes–appropriate taxes–then the government revenue increases which helps keep debt down. Also, some government programs could be considered investments by training workers for better jobs, improving our infrastructure- more jobs, investigators and regulators to search out fraud and wasteful spending and make government more efficient. There are so many ways we could invest in our country and after 11 years of Bush tax cuts and financial deregulation, it is painfully obvious that jobs have not been created and big business can not be trusted to self regulate. Profits have become more important than compassion, empathy and understanding for our fellow citizens.
The ones who create wealth are the workers. The ones who need the soaking are those who *steal* the wealth crated by their workers. If anyone’s labor can be valued at $30k/year, it is morally impossible for ANYONE’S labor to be worth $30M.
We also need a higher top tax rate. This country cannot be run without money to pay for it, and anyone who expects to live here and not pay a fair percentage of their wealth for it is a leech on society. The wealthy who do not want to pay are just as greedy as the people who are on welfare by choice.
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[...] Really, if you have been paying any attention at all to the deficit discussions over the past 6 months or so, you will know that the only people who are against increasing tax revenues — whether that is from increased taxes on the wealthy or closing of unneeded loopholes) — are Congressional Republicans. There has been a decent amount of polling about this over the past 6 months, polling that Bruce Bartlett has rounded up at his blog. [...]
“An April CBS News/NY Times poll showed that 72% of people favored raising taxes on the wealthy in order to reduce the deficit.”
Heh. Homer Simpson’s tax policy: Can’t someone else pay for it?
At least I provided facts. Want link to my sources? How bout you provide a single fact and source link instead of making insane claims that you know even Glen beck wouldn’t stand behind.
The facts are the Republicans, as a party, have committed treason against th United States of America.
Anyone who could support Republicans is either completely ignorant or a bad person. It has come to that.
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Nearly every poll indicates that people think that other people should pay higher taxes!
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The terms “soaking the rich” and “they need to pay their fair share” by both sides are seriously off the mark. The monstrous profits by the corporatocracy are impossible without a supporting expanded infrastructure (e.g., judiciary, education, transportation/roads, health system, government, and on and on -i.e., a stable, educated,healthy, mobile populace and society,. . .) With all the $$ paid by the corporatocracy, it still doesn’t come close to paying for that infrastructure. We’re being robbed. It has nothing to do with “fair share.” What’s going on now is no more that their sycophants (rethugs) trying to finish us off after coopting our government and press. We gotta stop it now. Last chance!!
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