Posted on 04/14/2011 8:23:56 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Barack Obama tried to make the case for tax hikes yesterday as a means to close the budget deficit and reduce debt, but a new poll from the Associated Press shows that new taxes will be a tough sale. Voters prefer spending cuts to tax hikes by a 62/29 margin, a much more significant divide than between those who believe their tax levels to be fair or not:
Not that they’re cheering. Fewer people expect refunds this year than in previous years, a new Associated Press-GfK poll shows. But as Monday’s filing deadline approaches, the poll shows that 54 percent believe their tax bills are either somewhat fair or very fair, compared with 46 percent who say they are unfair.
Should taxes be raised to eat into huge federal deficits? Among the public, 62 percent say they favor cutting government services to sop up the red ink. Just 29 percent say raise taxes.
The fairness issue breaks about where one would expect. Liberals and moderates are more likely to think their tax levels are fair than conservatives; same for Democrats and independents as opposed to Republicans. Women were more approving than men, but one result was a little more surprising: whites were more likely to approve of the fairness of taxes than non-whites.
The level of approval on fairness hasn’t changed much over the last four years of polling on the subject, and it’s not difficult to see why. First, tax rates haven’t changed in that period, nor have they changed in any direction since 2003. If they generally moved in any direction, taxpayers may have slid into lower tax brackets in the recession thanks to unemployment or underemployment. Also, income tax rates are relatively low in their history, and most Americans support paying some taxes to the federal government.
Obama asserted that the people like to talk about cuts in services until it’s their services that get cut. This appears to be more of a case of a dawning realization that all services are “our” services in the sense that we’re all footing the bill, and we’re all looking at massive balloon payments in the near future unless we cut soon. Paying a fair level of taxes is one thing, but few people will want to pay the level of tax required to fund the massive entitlement programs on their current trajectory, or even with the ambiguous tweaking that Obama suggested yesterday.
Speaking of taxes, Reason TV came up with a new video to celebrate the upcoming IRS deadline by running through a series of PG-rated new names for the IRS. It’s silly and sophomoric, but it’s also fun. For some reason (heh), it’s not embeddable, but clock over and enjoy.
In other words, taxpayers want spending cuts and tax dollar recipients want tax increases.
0 is merely signing the 4th verse of the same old DC Progressive song. It is just another lie.
How about this time we try something that has NEVER been tried by DC, we try to balance the budget strictly on budget cuts with NO tax increases?
Giving more tax money to DC is the equivalent of giving a heroin addict free drugs thinking it will “cure” his addiction
“AP poll shows 6 in 10 Americans want spending cuts, not tax hikes”
And statistically the other four are living on taxes, either through employment or an entitlement.
AP.
The same outfit that reported that GE was going to return the tax refunds that they got?
The government takes in plenty of $, an amazing amount of money in fact. The problem has absolutely nothing to do with revenues. They could double tax rates and I guarantee our spendthrift political class would still run out (of our money). It’s all about spending beyond the nation’s ability to pay.
Our nation’s credit card is maxed out, we’ve only been making minimum payments for years, and the world is about to raise our interest rate. If we conservatives, the nation’s responsible people, don’t step in and put a stop to it soon, everyone is going to suffer. For the sake of the very poor the Democrats claim to serve, we MUST reign in this spending. Otherwise, inflation will impoverish many more.
The takers are coming closer to outnumber the makers. This too is the great hope of the Rat party. We are dangerously close to the PONR.
I love it when they splash around these polls that say over 50% of Americans favor raising taxes on the rich. They fail to mention that 40% of Americans don’t pay income tax, so why should they care how much the rich are taxed.
“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that’’the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.”
—From Sen. Obama’s Floor Speech, March 20, 2006
At the time, Senator Obama was urging Congress not to tolerate an increase that would bring the debt ceiling to $9 trillion. Under President Obama, the debt ceiling has been raised to $14.3 trillion. Even without counting most unfunded liabilities, the national debt is now calculated to be nearing $14.1 trillion. It increases about $4.22 billion per day (each citizen’s share stands at roughly $45K). Thus, Democrats will soon demand that the debt ceiling be raised, lest the sky fall. When they do, they will be asking for a significant boost in a ceiling that is already 60 percent higher than the one Barack Obama said was “a sign of leadership failure” five years ago.
apparently past leadership failures are today’s progressive triumphs
exactly.
which is why we need a flat rate tax so EVERYONE has skin in the game.
This is aqctually a very encouraging poll result. 62% don’t want raising taxes, even on the evil rich.
62% get it which is much higer than I would have hoped for and shos no matter how 0dumbo tries to demonize the rich many people see the top paying 35% and think that is enough.
I also found it interesting that most white people think their taxes ar fair, nonwhite did not.
Ho many of the nonwhites even pay taxes?
That would make one hell of a great slogan . . . if only I could fit it on a bumper sticker . . .
We have a $3.7 TRILLION BUDGET.
(A) RAISE TAXES = 400B.
(B)CUT 19% ACROSS-THE-BOARD = 700B.
2012 REVENUE IS 2.6T then you add this 1.1T(400B + 700B) = 3.7T = BALANCED BUDGET IN 2012....
.We don’t have time for these 5 and 10 year plans when who knows who will be in office. Do it NOW. ....I don’t mind sacrificing for one year if the goal is a balanced budget for our Country. .....otherwise these lying politicians will stretch it out for their own benefit. The GOP Ryan plan doesn’t balance the budget for A QUARTER OF A CENTURY, in 2040. ..Rand Paul’s plan takes till 2015 BALANCE IT NOW.
If they can’t balance it now, then all they get to do is cut, because I don’t think they will keep their word longer than their next election. OTOH, if they would balance it this year, I would favor a 400 billion tax hike for one year. After that the taxes would go down as the revenues went up and produced surplus’.
Almost half of Americans pay no federal income tax. Asking them if that is fair is kind of funny. What are they gonna say, no?
See Obama the people are no longer with your silly immature ideas.Most of us heard the little hint that not just the rich folks taxes were going up.Government has a spending problem not a revenue problem.They should be made to know how much they have coming in each year and not spend a cent more.
JUst condense it down like “Taxes 2 Governmnet is like Money 2 herion addict” on two lines.
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.