Election Day Polls Empower President, Congress To Raise Taxes

According to the official exit polls on Election Day a combined 60 percent of voters support increasing taxes, with 47 percent supporting an increase in taxes on those making over $250,000 and 13 percent supporting a tax increase on everyone. Barely one third of voters think no one’s taxes should be increased. This support for higher taxes reinforces the fact that only small minority (21 percent) support the disastrous spending cuts-only approach to deficit reduction, as represented by the debt ceiling deal.

Making the voters’ views even more clear, an election night poll by Hart Research found that 62 percent of voters said that they were trying to send the message that the Congress should make sure the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes. In addition, the Hart poll found that 73 percent of voters said that Medicare and Social Security benefits should be protected from cuts.

This is important: while lawmakers in DC have been focused on deficit reduction over the last couple years, most voters do not share their concern. In fact, 59 percent told pollsters on Election Day that unemployment was the most important economic issue facing the country, which is almost four times the percentage of voters that said the deficit was the most important economic issue.

The results of these Election Day polls mirror a plethora of public polling over the past couple of years on how to handle deficit reduction. Earlier this year, for example, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that as many as 72 percent of Americans support increasing taxes on millionaires. Making the public preference clear, former Reagan official Bruce Bartlett compiled 19 different polls during the debt ceiling fight last year showing there is wide support among Americans for raising taxes to deal with the deficit.

Taken together, the Election Day polls once again reveal the substantial gap between the kinds of policies that the public would like Congress to pursue and the policies it’s actually pursuing. To start, the fact that the public is more concerned about the health of the economy than about deficit reduction should make Congress reverse course and actually increase government spending and investment, which is several times more stimulative to the economy than making the Bush tax cuts permanent, i.e. permanently cutting taxes. Second, Congress should recognize that to the extent that deficit reduction is needed over the long term, the public heavily favors a balanced approach that includes significant immediate revenue increases and spending cuts, rather than the spending cuts-only approach favored by Congress in recent years. Voters told Washington to get real about taxes because voters themselves are realistic about revenues. The message couldn’t be more clear.