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Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Swing District Voters' Perceptions of Tax Policy
A Greenberg, Quinlin, Rosner Reasearch survey released today has some findings regarding the perceptions of voters in swing congressional districts regarding tax policy.
As described in the memo accompanying the survey:
With the rising urgency about the economy, President Bush and the Republicans candidates are in near lock step calling for tax cuts, and above all, making President Bush's tax cuts permanent. You can almost hear the relief that the subject has turned to taxes again. But they are wrong. Republicans no longer have any advantage on taxes...
In our survey conducted in mid-December in the battleground, the most competitive 65 congressional districts — 25 held by Democrats and 40 by Republicans... The Republicans are intent on starting the debate with "making the Bush tax cuts permanent." A majority of 55 percent agree that Bush's tax cuts have not been worth it... The Republican counter argument that the tax cuts were a good thing because they have helped strengthen the economy and allowed Americans to keep more of their own money wins the assent of only 40 percent, trailing by 15 points. This sentiment against the Bush tax cuts prevails in both the Democratic and the Republican-held districts.
Maybe the (pre-?) recession climate is fueling these perceptions among voters in "purple" districts, but perhaps the survey's findings go deeper than that. Has the era of pronounced tax aversion in the U.S. that has held sway since the advent of California's Proposition 2 1/2 begun to abate somewhat? Are the Reagan-Bush era tax cuts starting to look like too much of a good thing, for too long... benefiting too few people, and the others too little?
Posted by Dana Chasin
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