The New York Times has a post by Neil Irwin head­lined ​“Why Amer­i­cans Don’t Want to Soak the Rich.” Irwin sug­gests a cou­ple of dif­fer­ent answers to this ques­tion, depend­ing on your ide­o­log­i­cal point of view:

Actually, Americans do want to “soak the rich.”

If you’re con­ser­v­a­tive, a com­pelling answer might be this: Amer­i­cans are seek­ing less redis­tri­b­u­tion because they have come to their sens­es. … If you’re a lib­er­al, the answer might be more like this: Amer­i­cans have been hood­winked by con­ser­v­a­tive politi­cians and media out­lets, and have come to view redis­tri­b­u­tion as a dirty word because they don’t rec­og­nize the ways it ben­e­fits them.

I would sug­gest a third answer, though: Amer­i­cans do want to ​“soak the rich.”

There’s some­thing of a sleight-of-hand here, as Irwin asserts that

Amer­i­cans’ views on whether the gov­ern­ment should work to redis­trib­ute income — to tax the rich, for exam­ple, and fun­nel the pro­ceeds to the poor and work­ing class — have, depend­ing on which sur­vey answers you look at, either been lit­tle changed, or shift­ed toward greater skep­ti­cism about redistribution.

He doesn’t cite any exam­ples of these sur­veys show­ing either lit­tle change or greater skep­ti­cism, but when I look at polling over time on tax­ing the wealthy, what’s strik­ing to me is how con­sis­tent­ly pop­u­lar it is. Gallup has asked 17 times since 1992 whether upper-income peo­ple pay too much, too lit­tle or their fair share of fed­er­al tax­es, and every time a major­i­ty has said they pay too lit­tle. Only twice – in 2010 and 2011 – have less than 60 per­cent said they thought the rich were not pay­ing enough fed­er­al taxes.

The same series of Gallup polls found peo­ple say­ing that low­er-income and mid­dle-income peo­ple were pay­ing either their fair share or too much in tax­es. Cor­po­ra­tions, like the wealthy, were seen as pay­ing too lit­tle, by an even wider mar­gin — only twice in 11 rep­e­ti­tions of the ques­tion did less than 66 per­cent say cor­po­rate tax­es were not high enough.

And the Gallup results are no out­lier. An AP/​GfK poll from Feb­ru­ary found 68 per­cent say­ing that wealthy house­holds pay too lit­tle in fed­er­al tax­es. Poli­ti­fact cit­ed a hand­ful of polls, with find­ings that range from 59 per­cent to 72 per­cent, in sup­port of Paul Krugman’s claim that ​“large majori­ties sup­port high­er, not low­er, tax­es on the wealthy.”

And it’s not just tax­es on the wealthy; on the rel­a­tive­ly rare occa­sions when they’re asked to pick a side in the class con­flict, the Amer­i­can peo­ple gen­er­al­ly choose the left side of the field:

“ The income gap between wealthy Amer­i­cans and those who are less well off”: 51 per­cent called it ​ “ a major prob­lem,” while 15 per­cent said it was ​ “ not a prob­lem” (ABC News/​Wash­ing­ton Post, 1 ÷ 12 − 15 ÷ 15 )

The income gap between wealthy Amer­i­cans and those who are less well off”: per­cent called it ​ a major prob­lem,” while per­cent said it was ​ not a prob­lem” (ABC News/​Wash­ing­ton Post, ÷ − ÷ ) “ The eco­nom­ic sys­tem in this coun­try unfair­ly favors pow­er­ful inter­ests”: 62 per­cent agree (Pew, 2 / 18 / 15 )

The eco­nom­ic sys­tem in this coun­try unfair­ly favors pow­er­ful inter­ests”: per­cent agree (Pew, / / ) “ Should the gov­ern­ment do more to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor in this coun­try?”: 55 per­cent say yes (CBS News, 1 ÷ 9 − 12 ÷ 15 )

Should the gov­ern­ment do more to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor in this coun­try?”: per­cent say yes (CBS News, ÷ − ÷ ) “ The gov­ern­ment should work to sub­stan­tial­ly reduce the income gap between the rich and the poor”: 66 per­cent agree (CNN/ORC, 1 ÷ 31 − 2 ÷ 2 ÷ 14 )

The gov­ern­ment should work to sub­stan­tial­ly reduce the income gap between the rich and the poor”: per­cent agree (CNN/ORC, ÷ − ÷ ÷ ) “ Do you feel that the dis­tri­b­u­tion of mon­ey and wealth in this coun­try is fair, or do you feel that the mon­ey and wealth in this coun­try should be more even­ly dis­trib­uted among more peo­ple?”: 62 per­cent called for more redis­tri­b­u­tion (CBS News, 1 ÷ 17 − 21 ÷ 14 )

Do you feel that the dis­tri­b­u­tion of mon­ey and wealth in this coun­try is fair, or do you feel that the mon­ey and wealth in this coun­try should be more even­ly dis­trib­uted among more peo­ple?”: per­cent called for more redis­tri­b­u­tion (CBS News, ÷ − ÷ ) “ How much, if any­thing, should the gov­ern­ment do to reduce the gap between the rich and every­one else?”: 69 per­cent said ​ “ a lot” or ​ “ some”; 26 per­cent said ​ “ not much” or ​ “ noth­ing at all” (Pew, 1 ÷ 15 − 19 ÷ 14 )

So how does Irwin get away with claim­ing there is ​“flat or declin­ing sup­port for redis­tri­b­u­tion”? Part of it, as I said, is by not cit­ing any actu­al polls; if he did, I sus­pect that even those that show ​“declin­ing sup­port” would still be indi­cat­ing a high lev­el of sup­port, under­min­ing the whole point of the column.

Anoth­er trick is to segue from (unnamed) polls to politi­cians’ plat­forms — as if both are equal­ly valid meth­ods of gaug­ing pub­lic opin­ion: ​“It’s not just pub­lic opin­ion polls, either. It shows up in the actu­al poli­cies espoused by can­di­dates for office and enact­ed by Congress.”

A more on-point top­ic for a col­umn would be, ​“Why Politi­cians Don’t Soak the Rich — Even Though Vot­ers Want Them To?” Clear­ly, the bil­lions of dol­lars that flow to can­di­dates from the wealthy are a major fac­tor. But I wouldn’t under­es­ti­mate the role of hood­wink­ing by cor­po­rate media out­lets — espe­cial­ly those owned by bil­lion­aires who have no desire to be soaked.