Poll: Most Think Some Bush Tax Cuts Should Expire

By: Stephanie Condon
Topics: Economy ,; Polling

CBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto.

The tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush are set to expire at the end of the year, and Democrats and Republicans will spar this fall over whether to extend them for all Americans, or to allow the tax cuts to expire for the richest Americans.

A new CBS News poll finds that a majority of Americans, 56 percent, say the tax cuts should expire for households earning over $250,000 per year, as Democrats have proposed. Thirty-six percent of Americans say they should not be allowed to expire.

As CBS News Capitol Hill Producer Jill Jackson reported on Hotsheet last week, Democrats want to permanently extend tax cuts for taxpayers falling in the 10, 25 and 28 percent tax brackets. Taxpayers falling in the 33 percent bracket move up to 35 if they make over $250,000 as a family. The 35 percent bracket then goes up to 39 percent.

Republicans are calling that the largest tax increase in U.S. history and are calling for an extension of all the tax cuts. Democrats counter that extending tax cuts for the wealthy is fiscally irresponsible. (Read more about the debate and proposals here.)

The CBS News poll, conducted Aug. 20 - 24, shows that Democrats favor letting those tax cuts expire, while Republicans are split on the issue. Forty-eight percent of Republicans say the tax cuts should expire, while 46 percent think they should be made permanent.

And despite the Obama administration's plan to allow tax cuts to expire for those earning $250,000 or more, 27 percent of Americans see the administration's policies as favoring the rich. Eighteen percent say they favor the middle class, and 17 percent say they favor the poor.

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Still, 28 percent say the Obama administration's policies treat all groups equally.

As many as 39 percent of Republicans say the administration's policies favor the rich, while 25 percent of Republicans say they favor the poor and 13 percent say they favor the middle class.

Among Democrats, 44 say the administration's policies treat all groups the same. Another 29 percent say they favor the middle class, while 19 percent say they favor the rich.

In assessing the U.S. economy, Americans see a system that favors the few: 62 percent say only those at the top now have a chance to prosper and get ahead, while 35 percent still think anyone has a chance to get ahead.

The poll also found that overall views of the economy remain bleak: four in five think it is bad, and now a third say it is getting worse, an increase since last month. And while most think it will eventually recover, more than a third think it is in permanent decline.

More from the poll:

Poll: Obama Approval Rating Up Slightly
Poll: Americans Split over Birthright Citizenship
Poll: Nearly 3 in 10 Support Tea Party
Poll: Most Say New Orleans Deserves More U.S. Aid
Poll: Most Americans Say Iraq War Was a Mistake
Read the Complete Poll

This poll was conducted among a random sample of 1,082 adults nationwide, interviewed by telephone August 20-24, 2010. Phone numbers were dialed from random digit dial samples of both standard land-line and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups is higher.

This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

Stephanie Condon
Stephanie Condon is a political reporter for CBSNews.com.
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by GOPHypocrisy August 27, 2010 11:21 AM EDT: There is hope yet! The American public is not buying the GOP pack of lies that somehow giving $3MM to each of the weathiest Americans (who will not even notice the money in their accounts) will spur our economy back to health. THIS IS THE ISSUE the Dems must run on between now and November. Come Join Us ridiculing the Right at GOPHypocrisy on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/GOPHypocrisy/118526228159115; Reply to this comment


by gruven13777 August 27, 2010 12:34 AM EDT: This is a tough call. On one hand, all the tax cuts proved is that "trickle down economics" does not work. "The theory" was that rich people were suppose to spend and reinvest the money they were saving from the tax cuts back into our economy....and now look where we are...worst recession in American history with no end in sight. On the other hand, we really don't want our Federal government getting their hands on all that money because they'll just horde it, or **** it all away on something stupid like the rich people did.; Reply to this comment


by info-hunter August 26, 2010 10:23 PM EDT: Those that can best afford to pitch in and help pay for the retardlican wars and tax give aways for the rich would rather place as much of the tax burdon on the sholders of the poor and less fortunat ass possable. The rich fail to realize that the faster the republican created disaster is over the sooner they can expect to make even more money. What they don't want everyone to know is the rich have wet dreams just thinking of a big slow down such as this one they handed us. If you are rich and everyone is loosing their homes and property at the same time like now, you have the funds to buy up valuable assets for pennys on the dollar at fire sale prices. Makes you wonder if the rich have not killed the economy to do just that. And the rich get richer. Their are more millionares now then before the meltdown what does that tell you? The gap between the have and the have nots has never grown faster then during the Quick Draw George and Darth Cheney years and they are the true killers of the middle class and the American dream. And the rich get richer and now you know why they want to keep the economy and the average working family broke and at risk of loosing everything they worked for. Like they say "for every looser there is a winner" and the rich want to keep winning at the expence of the less fortunat. And the poor get poorer.; Reply to this comment


by RobAla August 26, 2010 9:39 PM EDT: People are all about taxing other people. Most people are not rich, so most think it would be good to tax the rich - until they realize that taxing the rich takes money out of the economy and pushes into Washington. We need all the money in the economy that we can get right now. We need it in the economy to create jobs and so that business can borrow it to expand - we do not need to feed a bloated federal government with more taxes. We need to reduce the federal government to a manageable size, so that more taxes are not needed.; Reply to this comment