Posted on 09/21/2011 9:24:21 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Pundits dismissed the president’s jobs and deficit reduction proposals as political grandstanding, but the American people appear to approve of many of the president’s ideas, according to a Gallup poll released today.
The survey of 1,004 adults — only about 44 percent of whom were Republicans or Republican-leaning independents — showed significant majorities support a majority of the individual components of the president’s plan.
For example, 70 percent favor increasing taxes on some corporations by eliminating certain tax deductions and 66 percent favor increasing income taxes on individuals earning at least $200,000 and families earning at least $250,000.
The first part of that is fine. I’m all for true tax reform. I like the idea of closing loopholes to ultimately lower taxes on corporations to increase their global competitiveness, as Paul Ryan says. But the second part is troubling. Gallup didn’t ask questions to determine the respondents’ general knowledge of the tax code, though, so it’s impossible to know whether those polled would still approve of increasing taxes on the rich if they knew the top 10 percent of earners pays 70 percent of federal income taxes or that the top 1 percent pays 38 percent while nearly half of U.S. households pay no taxes at all.
Majority support for other of the president’s nonsensical proposals are even more disheartening. Take this one: 73 percent support giving tax breaks to companies hiring people who have been unemployed for more than six months. Sounds good on its face, but, as Ed has said on his show, it’s a simple question of incentives: A tax break of a couple of thousand dollars will not motivate companies to hire workers at a salary of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. The tax break will go only to those who would have hired new workers in the first place. That means more federal government spending, but not necessarily more jobs.
Large majorities also support providing more funds to hire teachers, police officers and firefighters (75 percent) and providing more funds for public works projects, including making repairs to more than 30,000 schools (72 percent). The wording of the questions might have something to do with those results — far harder to oppose hiring more “teachers, police officers and firefighters” than “state employees” and to oppose school repairs than other types of public works spending. It also perturbs me that the question suggests the federal government can “provide” more funds, when, in fact, all it can do is redistribute funds. If it was a question of “free money” or “Obama money from his stash,” as one supporter so memorably put it long ago, then, sure, I’d be a fan of hiring more teachers and making school repairs, too. But if it’s a question of adding to the debt that’s dragging down our economy in the first place and of penalizing the very people best positioned to create jobs and grow the economy, then I’d rather we not spend more money we don’t have, thank you very much.
The only proposal a majority of respondents did not support was the extension of the payroll tax cut — probably because Gallup called that what it actually is, “reducing Social Security taxes for workers and employers.” Forty-seven percent approved of that idea, while 49 percent disapproved. Does that mean the American people are aware SS is bound to go belly up eventually and don’t want to hearken the day? Or do they just see “Social Security” in a question and resist any kind of change to the program? I’d like to at least take that as a hopeful sign that the electorate is beginning to understand the precarious position of our entitlement programs. The results of the rest of the poll were depressing enough.
Of course americans want the rich taxed more. Our citizens have been told lie after lie that the rich don’t pay ‘their fair share” in taxes. After hearing this lie repeated so often it’s become their reality. If the rich really paid less than the middle class I’d want their taxes raised as well. But the truth is the rich pay WAY more than their fair share.
This isn’t a sampling question or bad poll. Unfortunately, way too many Americans are all for taxing “the rich” to protect their middle class entitlements. It results from the erosion of our national character. We’ve gone from rugged individuals to adult babies who sit on our asses with our hands out looking for someone to feed us and take care of us and give us toys to play with. Not everyone in America is this way but a lot of people are. Its disgusting. And its reflected in this poll. Have the “rich” pay for my kids college, or subsidize my mortgage, or pay for my retirement, or the roads I drive on. Its what we are up against as conservatives.
This is primarily because they don’t know the specifics. They think that the wealthy are paying 10-20% of their income in taxes. Asking the question without providing that information is not really telling us much.
Get to specifics; inform people that many of the wealthy pay more than half their income in combined federal, state and local taxes, and you’ll see a very different reaction.
Almost no one thinks that someone should pay more than half his income to government.
“Well golly gee, then let’s look at the REAL polls: election results....”
We won because Americans don’t trust the Democrats to raise taxes ONLY on the rich. But Americans have no problem raising taxes on the rich as long as it doesn’t affect their tax bracket.
An interesting poll question would be: How much is a fair share?
I suspect the answer would be far less than the wealthy are currently paying.
That’s why the question is never asked. Except by Stuart Varney, who is asking just that question of Democrats, and, unsurprisingly, not getting an answer.
Nearly 50% of American’s are already living off “other people’s money,” by not paying income taxes!
So, Gallop had a 50/50 chance of getting the results they were seeking - right off the top! Look, if they only called the local section 8 list or the projects, then their numbers would have been closer to 100%!!!
I mean, DUH! Socialism/Communism always works in the beginning due to the fact that the LEADERS all blame “other people!” When the first group of “other people” are broke or dead, the next group with the wares become the “other people!” By the time the bourgeois figures all of this out, it is usually too late and many millions will have been exterminated! See Russia, China, Cambodia, etc...
This must have been the poll question:
Don’t you think we oughta tax filthy rich bastards more since they don’t really deserve to have all that money anyway and we need it to fund your free government cheese?
The American People are ignorant and smug. Demagoguery works because people are lazy and jealous.
My bet is that the question was: "Hey, you know that rich bastard Buffett and his billionaire cronies admitted that they pay less taxes than a secretary. You also know they get government bailout money. So do you think they should pay their fair share?"
This is no surprise. Everyone wants someone else to be taxed.
“Everyone wants to live at the expense of the State. They forget that the State exists at the expense of everyone.”
-Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)
What’s bad is that people think these tax increases are going to make everything OK. The increases won’t cover 5% of the problem.
BEST answer....LOL
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.