Poll: Millionaire Tax Popular, Spending Cuts Too

Poll: Millionaire Tax Popular, Spending Cuts Too

By Alan Fram | Associated Press | 02/23/2012

Excerpts:

WASHINGTON (AP) – “Most people like President Barack Obama's proposal to make millionaires pay a significant share of their incomes in taxes. The survey suggests that while Obama's election-year tax plan targeting people making at least $1 million a year has won broad support, it has done little to shift people's basic views in the long-running partisan war over how best to tame budget deficits that lately have exceeded $1 trillion annually.

"Everybody should be called to sacrifice. They should be in the pot with the rest of us," Mike Whittles, 62, a Republican and retired police officer from Point Pleasant, N.J., said of his support for Obama's tax proposal for the wealthy

Sixty-five percent of the people in the AP-GfK poll favor Obama's plan to require people making $1 million or more pay taxes equal to at least 30 percent of their income. Just 26 percent opposed Obama's idea.

Fifty-four percent in the poll gave Democrats favorable ratings compared to 46 percent for Republicans, similar to results in January 2011, at the start of the newly elected Congress in which Republicans have run the House and Democrats wield a slender Senate majority.

Though embraced by congressional Democrats, Obama's proposal on taxing millionaires more has virtually no chance of passage by Congress in the political heat of this year's campaigns. But it stands as a rallying cry for Democrats - about 9 in 10 of whom supported the plan in the poll - and it contrasts with proposals by the remaining major GOP presidential candidates, who would lower the current 35 percent top income tax rate.

Obama has spent months touting his plan, nicknamed the Buffett rule after Warren Buffett, the billionaire who has complained that the rich don't pay enough taxes and that his own tax rate has been lower than his secretary's. The wealthy Mitt Romney, a leading GOP presidential contender, has released tax returns showing he paid a rate of around 15 percent the past two years.

Illustrating the wide acceptance for Obama's tax proposal for the rich, the poll showed it was supported by nearly two-thirds of independents and 4 in 10 Republicans. It also won backing from 6 in 10 whites and half of conservatives, two groups that traditionally are more likely to support the GOP, as well as by 6 in 10 people earning at least $100,000 a year.

Congress continues to receive dismal reviews from voters. Just 19 percent approve of the job Congress is doing, virtually unchanged from last December. That's not far from Congress' worst-ever approval rate in the brief history of the AP-GfK poll of 12 percent last August, shortly after Obama and lawmakers resolved a stubborn standoff over raising the debt limit.

"We put them there to do their job and they're not doing their job," said Gary Witalison, 54, a residential painter in Fish Creek, Wis. "They're not working things out. Work together."

The AP-GfK poll was conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications and involved cell phone and landline interviews with 1,000 randomly chosen adults. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.”

http://netscape.compuserve.com/news/story.jsp?idq=/ff/story/1001/20120223/0320.htm
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With the Dow up by 12 points today, it seems like a logical time for the House and Senate to pass some of President Obama’s Jobs Bills to get Americans back to work, pass a tax hike for people earning more than $200,000 with few deductions. Perks and incentives they have become used to. It will get our revenue base back in working order and the government will be able to lessen our deficit more easily.

The polls show that Americans are for this tax hike for the wealthy after years of the Bush Tax Cuts that added to the deficit that GW Bush left us with. In fact 2005 was a record breaking year for “pork” spending by republicans that ended in 2006 with many republicans being voted out of office. Then in 2008 a tsunami broke loose and Democrats won both the House and Senate. All of this was because of excessive republican spending and corruption.

We have another big election in November and things are not looking good for the republicans/T-baggers with their popularity at a new low (9%) in Congress, an inferior medley of empty-suit and sweater-vest candidates that cannot discuss the economy, unemployment and acting like they are from another planet. Their debates continue to be shark fests and fighting each other, which only drive the majority away from their ticket.

They have lost the driving force…jobs…and now have switched to that old republican/T-bagger agenda…birth control, abortion anything to do with a woman’s reproductive organs in an attempt to rally the red neck base, but that is also failing. The republican party has lost its way in providing the average American a simple reason to vote for them.

Perhaps it would be best to just to pass on this election cycle, retool the republican party, dump the T-baggers, and start a new honest, humble agenda towards working for the American people rather than corporate America. The people know where the republican/T-baggers’ true agenda lies and will tell you all about it in November.

 

65% want someone other than themselves to pay the bills. What a complete surprise that is.

Republicans control both Houses of Congress
FY 2005 Spending=$2,472. trillion, deficit, $318.4 billion.

FY 2006 Spending=$2,655.1 trillion, deficit, $248.2 billion

FY 2007 Spending=$2,728.7 trillion, deficit, $160.7 billion

DEMOCRATS take control of both Houses of Congress

FY 2008 spending=$2,982.5, deficit, $458.6 billion** [** the record high deficit for a Republican Congress was and remains at $412.7 billion]

FY 2009 Spending=$3,517.7*, deficit, $1,412.7 TRILLION**
[*DEMOCRAT SPENDING $789,000,000,000.00 HIGHER, than the highest ever Republican spending.]---{**DEMOCRAT RECORD HIGH DEFICIT, $1,412.7 TRILLION, is exactly $1,000,000,000,000.00 HIGHER than the highest ever Republican deficit {FY 2004 $412.7 billion}]

Seems you have your numbers as badly mixed up as it is possible to do.

 

cuts first then raise taxes

 

When will liberal politicians ever learn. What's worse the ones in the U.S. seem incapable of learning from the mistakes of others. They raised the taxes and revenue dropped, I'll bet for them the drop was "unexpected"

The top 5 percent of income earners accounts for about one-third of spending, and the top 20 percent accounts for close to 60 percent of spending.

 

I read the article and it claimed that spending by the top 5 percent is closely related to the stock market. With the DOW being up 80% from its low in March 2009, the rich are spending more.

Nowhere in that article is the word "tax" mentioned.

 

that's why we are $15 trillion in debt.

As long as the pain of taxes are low, why would the Pass the Buck generation care about cutting spending?

 

When did that happen?

Fabricating again?

Year - % increase in revenues
1990 4.1%
1991 2.2% <- Bush I minor tax increase
1992 3.4%
1993 5.8% <- Clinton major tax increase
1994 9.0%
1995 7.4%
1996 7.5%
1997 8.7%

Soruce data: CBO.gov

 

Is anyone really surprised, it's populous policies, they are by definition popular with the people.

Inequality is higher than ever, of course a tax on top earners is going to be cheered on. The general term "spending cuts" is always popular, but as soon as you start talking about what to cut, you get demagogued.

 

Exactly.

And you have most on one side demanding the budget be balanced with spending cuts first and most on the other side demanding the budget be balanced with tax increases first, and no one is willing to compromise.

And we act surprised the Govt is $15 trillion in debt.

It seems unbelievable that just 11 years ago our biggest budget problem was whether the surpluses would be too big.

Boy did we make a wrong turn. Or several of them.

 

That's a load of crap. We are taxed plenty... the SPENDING IS TOTALLY KILLING THIS NATION.

Our government SPENDS waaaaaay too much.

Let's examine taxing more....

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=661pi6K-8WQ"]EAT THE RICH! - YouTube[/ame]

 

Take away a big chunk of that income by taxing it, they will have that much less to spend. That's just common sense.

 

Go back and ACTUALLY read the article I posted, then come back and apologize for not doing that in the first place.

 

Taxes are proportionately the lowest they have been in 60 years and the richest are proportionately richer than they've been since the 1920s.

Our government TAXES waaaaaaaaay to little.

 

Taxes schmaxes. If they're willing to spend money that we aren't taking in as revenue then no matter what the tax level the debt problem isn't going away.

I see spending as the bigger of the two issues for this reason. Spending already outpaces tax revenue, what makes me think they won't just spend more if I give them more? Surely there's some brown people we need to go shoot bombs at.

 

Spending schmending.

If they're not willing to tax money to take in as revenue that we are spending, then no matter what the spending level the debt problem isn't going away.

I see taxing as the bigger of the two issues for this reason. Tax revenue already underpaces spending, what makes me think they won't just tax less if we spend less? Surely there's some 1%ers we need to make richer.

Your arguments are simply expressions of personal preference. Easy to reverse.

 

I wouldn't say preference but I would say chicken and egg problem.

Both have to happen, I guess I just don't see the logic in giving someone with a spending problem more money to blow at the craps table.

 

Yes, people will spend less if they have less money. However, you claimed that taxes went up and revenues went down, yet you linked an article that spending by the rich is more closely related to stock market rather than their flows in income from labor.

Plus, who is proposing to "take away a big chunk of that income by taxing it"? Certainly not Obama.
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?Docid=3211&DocTypeID=2

 

I posted an article of recent tax hikes on the wealthy in the UK and how their tax revenue dropped. Then I posted a link to an article highlighting who is spending the bulk of the economy growing money. The point I was making was aimed at the OP's article. While a millionaire tax may be popular with the masses, it's inevitable that higher taxes on the folks actually spending their money into the economy will hinder that spending and slow economic growth. I hope that makes it clear.

 

Go back and ACTUALLY read the article you posted, then come back and apologize for not doing that in the first place.

 

I posted an article on raising taxes on the wealthy in the UK NOW in 2012 and the effect it had. Then you come back and somehow try to compare taxes and revenue back 20+ years ago when the economy was flying high on the computerization of America and the World to doing so today. To compare the economy and taxes today to back 20+ years ago makes NO sense at all.

 

So what. That is the UK, not the US.

It make perfect sense. It proves revenues increased dramatically after the last two significant tax increases in the US.

Feel free to point out a significant tax increase in the US that didn't result in higher tax revenues.

If you weren't just fabricating, that is.

 

Tax the Rich 100%... it won't matter. (watch the video if you dare to be educated)

 

Who claimed we should tax anybody 100%?

Massive strawman.

 

Please prove that the increase was JUST due to higher taxes and not from a booming economy back in the late 1990. Revenue would increase with the rise in volume of business increasing due to the computerization of America regardless of higher taxes. Which wouldn't happen in a down economy as proven by the article about the UK increasing taxes in a DOWN economy.

If you'd like to debate with me please stop the childish accusations.

 

Pass, I never claimed that the dramatic increase in revenues was JUST because of higher taxes.

Feel free to prove the higher taxes had NOTHING to do with the dramatically higher revenues.

They do. But after the major Clinton tax increase, taxes rose much faster that the volue of business increasing.

Whether they would increase in a down economy depends on the type and size of tax cut versus the economic decline.