[sickoflibs]

I have to be the fly in the ointment here, it took a minute to find this:
19 Different Polls Show That Americans Support Tax Increases To Cut Deficit (July 1, 2011, Politics USA)

Why the change in poll results from last year? Last year NO-ONE was talking about cutting entitlements and relating taxes to cuts in those. Now when ya talk about protecting medicare from cuts, the polls on raising taxes look difference.

Old Tea party motto: “ Cut that spending gadumit or else..”
NextTea party motto: “ SS is MY money gadumit. Send me my check or else.. ”

Deficit reduction is tough business, deficit creation is the party.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

I have to be the fly in the ointment here, it took a minute to find this: 19 Different Polls Show That Americans Support Tax Increases To Cut Deficit (July 1, 2011, Politics USA) Why the change in poll results from last year? Last year NO-ONE was talking about cutting entitlements and relating taxes to cuts in those. Now when ya talk about protecting medicare from cuts, the polls on raising taxes look difference.

Here is Ann Couter's analysis. If the voters are going to punish the GOP for a frontal assault on entitlements, give Obama a poison pill to eat.

Democrats are at an advantage in the "should the U.S. go bankrupt or not?" debate because, based on their economic policies so far, they obviously favor bankruptcy. This allows them to sit back and demand that Republicans propose all the spending cuts and then turn around and scream that Republicans have declared war on the poor and disadvantaged.... But now, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has checkmated the Democrats. He has proposed a bill that will allow Obama to raise the debt ceiling three times, up to $2.4 trillion, over the next 18 months, but only provided Obama proposes equivalent cuts in spending each time. Finally, the Democrats will be forced to pony up spending cuts -- or default on the debt and crash the economy.

[FredZarguna]

While I agree with you that there has been some -- very discouraging -- softening on this issue, please have a look at the latest Rasmussen poll, which is actually more in line with the older polls.

The "19 polls" summary you cite is from a very left-wing web site, which misrepresents a good number of these polls, many of which do NOT EVEN ASK THE QUESTION about whether the respondent favors taxes. In many cases, the question is: do you believe higher taxes will be necessary? So please, don't just quote Lefties as if they tell the truth. This is spin. This web site even repeats the lie that raising taxes will raise revenue. This statement is counterfactual when made across the board. Anybody who doesn't know that is an economic naif.

As to the Gallup poll, it is generally good news for us, and even better news when you consider the internals: The Gallup poll is a poll of adults, not even registered voters. That will typically skew anywhere from 7 to 15 points left of likely voters depending on your weighing methodology. Also, Gallup acknowledges error margins as high as 7% for some individual questions. The most important finding in the poll is that self-identified independents favor the Republican position by 51% - 30%. Very good numbers.