Battleground Poll: Hike taxes on rich

An American appetite for tax hikes gives President Barack Obama leverage in fiscal cliff negotiations.

A new POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll finds that 60 percent of respondents support raising taxes on households that earn more than $250,000 a year and 64 percent want to raise taxes on large corporations.


Even 39 percent of Republicans support raising taxes on households making more than $250,000. Independents favor such a move by 21 percentage points, 59 to 38 percent.

Only 38 percent buy the GOP argument that raising taxes on households earning over $250,000 per year will have a negative impact on the economy. Fifty-eight percent do not.

( Also on POLITICO: Options narrow to avert fiscal cliff)

“Democrats really have a winning issue here, and we should drive it hard,” said Celinda Lake, the Democratic pollster who helped conduct the bipartisan poll. “We’re in an era now where there’s a lot of cynicism about trickle-down economics.”

Congress and the White House are currently battling over whether to allow the George W. Bush tax cuts — on middle-income and wealthy Americans — to expire at the end of this year, at the same time that massive spending cuts might occur. The so-called “fiscal cliff” could spark a recession just when the economy is beginning to recover.

During the 2012 elections, Obama campaigned on making the wealthy pay their fair share and has since claimed a mandate for raising taxes on the rich.

According to the poll — taken from from Dec. 2 to Dec. 6 — 69 percent of respondents oppose raising taxes on small businesses that earn more than $250,000 — a group that the GOP is trying to protect with its push to extend the Bush tax cuts.

( Also on POLITICO: Battleground Poll: No obvious 2016 GOP leader)

Republican pollster Ed Goeas, who also helped conduct the poll, sees a contradiction among those who say they don’t want to raise taxes on small businesses yet don’t think raising taxes on those earning over $250,000 will hurt the economy.

“Voters understand the problem, but they have come to no conclusions or solutions,” he said Sunday. “If there’s any belief on the part of Obama that he has in any way a mandate, … this data would show that he does not.”

For the first time, after the fiscal cliff dominated the conversation during the month following the election, government spending and the budget deficit narrowly edged out “the economy” as the most important issue to voters.

( PHOTOS: Fiscal cliff’s key players)

Three in four voters want to “cut government spending across the board,” but 59 percent oppose making significant cuts to the defense budget and 46 percent support ending foreign aid.

The slightest majority backs reducing Social Security and Medicare benefits for seniors that have higher incomes, but 64 percent oppose raising the retirement age to begin collecting Social Security benefits.

Obama — who was reelected in November with 50.6 percent of the vote — has a 50 percent overall job approval rating, with 47 percent disapproving. Fifty percent like how the president is working with Congress, despite the lack of progress in talks over a fiscal cliff deal. The president is steady on taxes, with 48 percent approving his handling of the issue compared to 47 percent who disapprove. But only 39 percent like how he’s dealt with the federal budget deficit, compared to 58 percent who disapprove.

By contrast, House Speaker John Boehner is underwater on likability. Only 29 percent view the lead Republican negotiator on the fiscal cliff favorably, and 34 percent view him unfavorably.

Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, the face of the opposition to any tax increases and the self-appointed enforcer of the so-called Taxpayer Protection Pledge, is basically unknown outside Washington. Six in 10 surveyed have never heard of him, and an additional 15 percent hold no opinion of the conservative strategist.

Only 7 percent of Americans view Norquist favorably, and just three in 100 view him very favorably. Eighteen percent hold a negative opinion, including 24 percent of independents and 6 percent of Republicans.

Beyond means-testing for Medicare and Social Security — the Washington term for cutting benefits received by the rich — there is little appetite for entitlement cuts.

Somewhat counterintuitively, young people are as opposed to increasing the retirement age as any other age group. Two in three Americans aged 18 to 29 oppose it. That’s on par with those aged 35 to 44 and 45 to 64.

Most seniors, meanwhile, feel as though they will not be affected by any changes to Social Security at this point. A slight majority of those 65 and older, 52 percent, support raising the retirement age to receive benefits from the program.

Since the era of Ronald Reagan, women have traditionally been more open to cutting defense spending than men. This has changed in recent years, and now women take a harder line than men on the military budget. While 41 percent of men favor making significant defense cuts and 56 percent oppose them, only 34 percent of women favor cuts and 62 percent oppose them. That’s a 15-point spread.

Women believe the world is more dangerous, Democratic pollster Lake explained, and they see cutting the military budget as harmful to the troops.

Democrats split evenly on whether to increase taxes on small businesses making more than $250,000, with 49 percent in favor and 49 percent opposed.

The opposition to raising taxes on small business provides a critical opening for GOP negotiators.

“I don’t think we are aggressive enough about standing up for small business, and we cede too much of that to Republicans,” said Lake.

The percentage who believes the country is on the wrong track has popped to 59 percent from 54 percent on the eve of the election. Only 34 percent think America is headed in the right direction.

If the 2014 midterm elections were held today, generic Democrats would have a 3-point advantage over Republicans, 45 to 42 percent. Congressional Republicans had a 1-point lead on the generic ballot, 47 to 46 percent, the weekend before last month’s election.

The POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll, conducted by the Tarrance Group and Lake Research Partners, surveyed 1,000 registered likely voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.