In the May poll I simply repeated a question from a national poll. The question then was "Should our gov't redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich? "
I thought that question was problematic for several reasons but I wanted to see how HROT compared with the nation at large. Nationally, we are split nearly evenly on this question and have gotten more sympathetic to this approach over the years of rising wealth inequality and economic sluggishness. BUT HROT opposes it by a 2-to-1 margin.
So now my question is to try to eliminate the problematic parts of the original question. Here's what I thought those problematic parts were:
1. How heavy is "heavy"? If Romney pays 14%, are we talking about taxing him 90%? 60%? 30%? Should Warren Buffett pay more than his secretary, percentagewise, the same, less?
2. "Redistributing wealth" gets a knee-jerk negative reaction from a lot of people.
3. "Rich" is another troubling term. What do we mean by "rich"?
So I have settled on this poll question:
"Would you support eliminating the deficit by raising taxes on those earning over $1 million?"
Instead of a purpose of redistributing wealth, the purpose is to eliminate the deficit. Most people (I assume) find that a desirable aim.
Instead of the vague term "rich" I have set a dollar amount that I think most people would recognize as a high income, even if a million isn't what it used to be.
And while I haven't said how heavy the extra tax should be, it needs to be enough to pay off the deficit, whatever that happens to be. Nor does it rule out using more than one bracket as we move up the wealth/income curve. The idea is to raise the tax enough to get the job done. In subsequent years, if other ways of reducing the deficit can be found - spending cuts, more revenues from growing the economy, whatever - the taxes could be reduced accordingly.
I thought that question was problematic for several reasons but I wanted to see how HROT compared with the nation at large. Nationally, we are split nearly evenly on this question and have gotten more sympathetic to this approach over the years of rising wealth inequality and economic sluggishness. BUT HROT opposes it by a 2-to-1 margin.
So now my question is to try to eliminate the problematic parts of the original question. Here's what I thought those problematic parts were:
1. How heavy is "heavy"? If Romney pays 14%, are we talking about taxing him 90%? 60%? 30%? Should Warren Buffett pay more than his secretary, percentagewise, the same, less?
2. "Redistributing wealth" gets a knee-jerk negative reaction from a lot of people.
3. "Rich" is another troubling term. What do we mean by "rich"?
So I have settled on this poll question:
"Would you support eliminating the deficit by raising taxes on those earning over $1 million?"
Instead of a purpose of redistributing wealth, the purpose is to eliminate the deficit. Most people (I assume) find that a desirable aim.
Instead of the vague term "rich" I have set a dollar amount that I think most people would recognize as a high income, even if a million isn't what it used to be.
And while I haven't said how heavy the extra tax should be, it needs to be enough to pay off the deficit, whatever that happens to be. Nor does it rule out using more than one bracket as we move up the wealth/income curve. The idea is to raise the tax enough to get the job done. In subsequent years, if other ways of reducing the deficit can be found - spending cuts, more revenues from growing the economy, whatever - the taxes could be reduced accordingly.
