Gallup released a new poll showing that America is still just fine with making the rich pay more taxes.
PRINCETON, NJ -- A majority of Americans favor letting the tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration expire for the wealthy. While 37% support keeping the tax cuts for all Americans, 44% want them extended only for those making less than $250,000 and 15% think they should expire for all taxpayers.
Add it up, and that's 59% saying the rich shouldn't keep this tax break. Or, looking at it another way, 81% supporting tax cuts for the middle class. Even 43% of Republicans polled think they should either expire totally, or be extended only for the middle class. Of course, it's not just Gallup that's found this. Greg Sargent helpfully pulls all the polling together to show why this is "an argument Dems have a rather good shot at, you know, winning if they decide to go for it."
* A new National Journal poll finds that 56 percent support ending either all the Bush tax cuts or just the ones for the wealthy, while barely more than a third want to keep them all.
* The new Gallup poll shows that 59 percent of Americans -- and a majority of independents -- supports either ending all the Bush tax cuts or just the ones for the wealthy.
Indeed, Gallup finds that Obama's proposal -- ending the tax cuts for the wealthy but not for everyone else -- has the support of 44 percent, more than any other solution.
* A CNN poll in late August found that a majority, 51 percent, favors ending the tax cuts for the rich, and another 18 percent favor ending them all.
It also found that among independents, 44 percent favor ending the tax cuts for the rich, while another 21 percent favor ending them all. Letting the tax cuts for the rich expire has majority support in all regions of the country except the south.
* A recent CBS poll also found a sizable majority, 56 percent, think the tax cuts for the wealthy should expire....
UPDATE, 11:09 a.m.: Here's another one: A recent Newsweek poll found 52 percent support letting the tax cuts for the rich expire, while only 38 percent support keeping them in place.
As Greg points out, people really seem to get the idea on this one--Obama and the Dems want a tax break for middle class America, and Republicans are fighting it to keep the rich from having their taxes raised. As he says, "this, of all things, is not an issue where Dems should conclude in advance -- as they often do -- that once Republicans go on the attack, it's game over and Dems can't possibly win the argument."
Ben Nelson has been the only Dem to blab his opposition to Obama's strong statement that "[W]e should not hold middle class tax cuts hostage any longer. We are ready, this week, to give tax cuts to every American making $250,000 or less." But he hasn't said anything about supporting a GOP filibuster, which might be why the White House seems confident that a veto threat isn't necessary.
Necessary or not, it might be something for the White House to rethink, because a really good fight over how the GOP is holding Obama's tax cuts for the middle class hostage to help the rich might be in order during the next 53 days.
