How Much Do You Want Higher Taxes?

On a West Wing episode during Jed Bartlett's re-election campaign, he was confronted by a pollster with numbers showing that a strong majority of white men wanted a constitutional amendment banning flag burning. Support such an amendment, the pollster urged the president, and you could win white men back to the Democratic Party and guarantee re-election.

Bartlett and his staff despised the very idea as un-American, of course, and were relieved to discover that another pollster had taken the idea a step further. That pollster asked how strongly the pro-amendment people felt about it. The answer: meh.

I think President Obama and congressional Democrats are assuming the same lack of intensity about polls showing majorities want higher taxes on the rich. I think they're dead wrong.

Steve Benen:

Gallup asked Americans what they’d like to see Congress do next on debt reduction. The top response in the newly-released poll: “Increasing income taxes for upper-income Americans.” A large 66% majority endorsed this move, including 45% of self-identified Republicans. No, that’s not a typo.

A new CNN poll asked the same question. Guess what was the most popular debt-reduction idea? “Increases in taxes on businesses and higher-income Americans,” which was backed by a 63% majority.

A McClatchy/Marist poll (pdf) released yesterday found that 68% of Americans support raising taxes on income over $250,000. In this survey, a majority of self-identified Republicans supported the idea.

Bruce Bartlett, a veteran of the Reagan and Bush administrations, has an updated list of 23 polls — all from the last nine months — which all show the same thing: consistent support from the American mainstream for higher taxes. The list isn’t selected — Bruce highlights (and links to) every poll he could find on this, and in each case, the margin was about 2-to-1 in support of tax increases for the wealthy.

As Bruce explained a month ago:

Contrary to Republican dogma, polls show that the American people strongly support higher taxes to reduce the deficit and improve income inequality.

This clearly isn’t what the congressional GOP had in mind. As debt-reduction talks got underway months ago, Republicans assumed they had the better hand — all they had to do, the party assumed, was say those rascally Democrats want to “raise taxes.” The public would recoil, Dems would back down, and all would be right with the world.

But it’s Democrats who are in sync with the public. Lately, it’s tough to get two-thirds of the country to agree on much, but they agree on raising taxes on the wealthy.

The GOP is an increasingly unpopular party, pushing an increasingly unpopular agenda. Here’s hoping Dems notice as the process moves forward.

Kevin Drum:

Which is all fine. Unfortunately, as with nearly all polls, these don't measure intensity of feeling. And I don't think anyone will be surprised if I suggest that the one-third of Americans opposed to tax increases feels really strongly about it while the two-thirds who support them don't really care all that much. They're certainly nowhere near ready to kick people out of office if they decline to vote for a tax increase.

This is, of course, the story of politics everywhere. A motivated minority trumps an apathetic majority every time. They always have and they always will. Until we can get people out in the streets with torches and pitchforks in favor of raising taxes on the rich, these polls just don't mean much.

Where is the pollster who will answer this question and prove either me or Kevin right?