This new Quinnipiac University poll
<http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62S44B20100329?feedType=RSS&feedN\
ame=domesticNews> shows the strongly populist--and traditionally
Democratic--leanings of Americans when it comes to bread and butter
issues.
The Quinnipiac University poll found that 60 percent of Americans among
both major political parties think raising income taxes on households
making more than $250,000 should be a main tenet of the government's
efforts to tame the deficit.
More than 70 percent, including a majority of Republicans, say those
making more than $1 million should pay more.
But 80 percent say raising taxes on those making less than that should
not be part of the government's approach. Moreover, most oppose touching
Medicare and Social Security - two long-term drivers of the budget
deficit over the coming decades....
Obama's 2011 budget proposal and most of his fellow Democrats favor
eliminating tax breaks for individuals making more than $200,000 and for
households making more than $250,000, which were enacted in 2001 and
2003.
Not surprisingly, many more Democrats than Republicans back hiking taxes
on those making more, though 56 percent of Republicans did support
raising taxes on those making more than $1 million, the poll found.
There was only a slim partisan divide, with only slightly fewer
Republicans opposed to cutting the growth of the government health plan
for the elderly, Medicare or Social Security, to help the deficit.
The American public, even Republicans, want basic economic fairness and
recognize that taxing the people who make a lot of money is a helluva
lot fairer than cutting Social Security and Medicare for the rest of us.
It's the basic principle Democrats have operated on for decades.
If the deficit commission really wants to cut entitlements, perhaps they
should consider the quasi-entitlement program defense contractors, which
has been a pretty significant contributor to the bloated budget deficit
in the past decade, as the Project on Defense Alternatives
<http://www.comw.org/pda/budgetreview2010.html> has shown. That,
combined with some well placed tax increases, should go a long way to
putting the country back on a sustainable fiscal track.
Reuters via:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/4/1/852478/-Q-Poll:-Tax-the-Rich!
