More Voters Than Ever Say Tax Cuts Help the Economy

On March 26, 2009, Rasmussen Reports released a poll on tax cuts and spending:

Democrats in the Senate are talking of cutting back President Obama's pledge of tax cuts for most Americans in the face of record deficits. But 63% of U.S. voters now say tax cuts would help the economy, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

That’s up from 56% in February and marks the highest level found in years of tracking this question. Scott Rasmussen has posed this polling question regularly since the mid-nineties and Rasmussen Reports now tracks it on a monthly basis.

Only 13% say tax cuts would hurt the economy, down from 16% a month ago.

Most voters (51%) believe increasing taxes would hurt the economy, the highest reading on this question since early January. Just under a quarter (23%) of voters say tax increases would help the country's economic situation.

Republicans are more enthusiastic about the benefits of tax cutting, while Democrats are more likely to believe that tax increases are beneficial to the economy.

On March 28th, someone posted it to a message board and said:

What I really want to know is who are the mentally defective 10% that think the Obama administration will shrink government spending. On the upside, 66% of the population thinks that the "tax increases on the rich" will apply to a lot more than just the rich, so there is a healthy skepticism brewing.

The most interesting aspect of the poll is how perceptions have whipsawed over a matter of mere months. A think the shenanigans have done some serious damage to the trust the American people have in the Federal government. Here's to hoping for a backlash.

On the 29th I responded with this:

This is what my uncle wrote to me:

The more I read about the economy the scarier it seems, but is the media overhyping? Obama wants to balance the budget, but there is already an over one trillion dollar deficit? I guess this includes the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which Bush didn't include. And I understand most of it was inherited from Bush. I do like Obama for at least informing people that tough choices will have to be made and we are leaving a horrible legacy of debt to the next generation. Of course I believed that back in the 80s under Reagan when the national debt reached 4 trillion.

The Democrats love to say that we can't afford tax cuts, but does anyone ever say that we can't afford tax increases? At least the Republicans have finally developed their own budget plans and I guess they are going to reveal their calculations this week. Of course the Dems plan will pass, but at least they can't say there was no alternative.

I think the first step is just to demand that we keep a balanced budget. Take the amount of money that we are currently bringing in as revenues, which I think is around 4 trillion and then we are not allowed to spend more than that, no matter what happens. Individuals do this to get their budget under control. Give priority to security and the military since that is mentioned in the Constitution. We will have to set a limit on the dollar amount and the number of people that are allowed to have entitlements. The main problem I see with this is that it will be perceived as incompassionate and there won't be enough support to actually cut programs. The simplest cut would be an across the board percentage. If we could ever achieve that goal, then we could move towards progress.