Monday, September 19, 2011

Tax (My Neighbor) Please

The Big Picture has an interesting table outlining recent polling results asking how individuals would prefer the budget deficit to be reduced; taxes (higher) or spending (lower). The chart below summarizes the most recent polls for each (some had more than one) and normalizes the responses by taking those for some / all taxes and dividing that by the number selecting no taxes (I did this as not all polls added to 100).

The Results


The results varied by survey showing there is always bias in polling (the NY Times -liberal- is near the top and Rasmussen -conservative- is near the bottom), but an overwhelming number of individuals favor at least some increase in taxation.

3 comments:

  1. It is hard, I would be ok with more taxes IF it was used correctly. Being from Massachusetts I know it will not be so why bother.

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  2. Jake,

    As long as we as a society want the government to solve all of our problems, we are not likely to eliminate federal deficits. People say they want the federal government to cut spending, but not their programs. People say they want to increase taxes, but not their taxes.

    Politicians promise "this, that, and the other thing", and people vote for whoever they think will give them the most goodies. True leadership means saying "no" more often than "yes", so we need politicians to run for office on a platform promising pain to the majority and for people to vote for them. But I don’t expect this to happen. After all, half of Americans don't even bother to vote and at least half of those who do vote do not think before they pull the lever.

    Thanks for letting me vent a bit.

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