Tax Cuts Have a Generic Appeal, But Are Not Voters' Highest Priority Funding popular programs like education and retirement more important
Republican leaders in the House are now developing a significant tax cut plan, which, according to press reports, will be unveiled in July and could entail as much as $778 billion dollars in tax savings over the next 10 years. The generic appeal of a tax cut is clear from a number of Gallup polls conducted over the last 20 years. Each time the public is asked about a "cut in federal income taxes," the responses are overwhelmingly positive. In 1977, for example, 79% of Americans said that they favored a federal income tax cut, and earlier this year, when the same question was posed again to the public, 72% said that they favored a tax cut. In similar fashion, Gallup polls conducted around tax time each year in April show that Americans consistently say they pay too much in federal income taxes.
The real-world popularity of a tax cut with the voting population is tempered, however, by additional polling which shows that its generic approval is moderated significantly when the public is given a context or specific other alternatives. For example, in a March Gallup poll, Americans were given a choice for uses of the federal budget surplus, after Social Security had been taken care of: a) to cut taxes, or b) to "fund new retirement savings accounts, as well as increase spending on education, defense, Medicare and other programs." With this juxtaposition of the tax cut against this litany of very popular programs, the public's opinion shifted strongly, to 59% who favored the funding of the programs against only 36% who favored the tax cut. On the other hand, when the alternative to the tax cut was phrased as simply "to increase spending on other government programs," the percentage in favor of the tax cut zoomed to 74%, suggesting that the way in which the alternative to a tax cut is worded or explained to the public can be extremely important. Funding specific, popular programs is more important than a tax cut, but the idea of a more generic increase in government spending is viewed as less important.
View full release at http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr990626.asp.