People Support Higher Taxes to Reduce the Deficit by a 2-to-1 Margin

It appears that Republicans have walked away from a historic opportunity to reduce the deficit because of their obsessive insistance that not one penny come from higher revenues. Recent polls, however, suggest that the American people are not so obstinate and are more than willing to accept some increase in taxes to reduce the deficit. There is a high degree of consistency in every poll I could find on this topic.

Can/Should the Budget Deficit Be Reduced with Spending Cuts Alone or Should There Be Some Increase in Taxes?

Poll
Date
Some/All Taxes
Spending Cuts Alone
7-14
67
25
7-13
73
20
6-9
61
37
5-13
64
33
5-12
61
27
4-29
76
20
USC/LA Times (California only)
4-25
62
33
4-22
66
19
4-20
62
36
3-15
67
31
12-12
62
36
Average
65
29

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About Bruce Bartlett 76 Articles

Affiliation: Forbes

Bruce Bartlett is a columnist for Forbes.com, the online side of Forbes, the nation’s premier financial magazine.

He served for many years in prominent governmental positions including executive director of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, Deputy Assistant Secretary for economic policy at the U.S. Treasury Department during the George H.W. Bush Administration, and as a senior policy analyst in the White House for Ronald Reagan.

Bruce is the author of seven books, including the New York Times best-selling Impostor: How George W. Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy, and thousands of articles in national publications including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, New Republic, Fortune and many others. He appears frequently on CNN, CNBC, C-SPAN and Fox News, and has been a guest on both the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report.

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