AMAC Exclusive-By Claire Brighn
With another Tax Day behind us, it’s worth our political representatives taking note of the degree to which Americans are unhappy with how much they’re taxed, and with the fact that their tax dollars almost always seem to result in more bureaucratic bloat and incompetence. According to the most recent Gallup historical data, 68% of Americans are none too pleased with the size and power of the federal government, with the number saying they are “very unsatisfied,” up a sizeable 14 points from 2020. 74% of voters also don’t agree with the way their tax dollars are spent – a figure that should concern Democrats after they just passed multiple trillion-dollar spending packages.
All of this should be a dire warning for Democrats inclined to back Biden’s 2023 budget, which proposes $73 trillion in spending and $58 trillion in taxes over the next decade, has 36 tax hikes built in, and is the next installment of Democrats’ far-left agenda to radically enlarge the scope and purview of the federal government. Biden’s budget also includes several major portions of the Build Back Better Act, but employs legislative workarounds to avoid detailing how much those initiatives would actually cost.
Survey after survey shows that Americans do not want the increase in their taxes that would result from passage of Biden’s budget. A recent Rasmussen poll shows 62% say they already believe they pay their fair share of taxes – the highest number ever recorded in this particular poll. But perhaps even more revealingly, a Trafalgar poll from last September showed that a whopping 72% of Americans turned their noses up at legislation that would increase taxes and national debt – which is exactly what Biden’s budget would do and what all of Democrats’ big spending legislation has done since the poll was taken.
Americans have good reason to be skeptical of Democrats’ spending plans. Because of growing deficits in Biden’s budget, the national debt would skyrocket from today’s $23.5 trillion to $39.5 trillion by the end of a decade – a $15 trillion jump translating into an unprecedented share of debt as portion of GDP. An Ipsos poll from July shows just 9% percent of Americans believe taxes are the solution to budget deficits, which also suggests that 9 in 10 Americans are likely opposed to an increase in their taxes to offset Democrat spending.
Those numbers likely have Democrats anxious given the tax proposals in Biden’s budget. One provision of the bill would raise the business tax rate to 28 percent, higher than in Communist China, destroying an estimated 159,000 jobs and reducing wages in the process. In Biden’s revenue proposal explanation, it ironically says this tax increase “can expand the progressivity of the tax system and help reduce income inequality.” Already, Democrat Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona said she won’t support such a measure, demonstrating that even some Democrats understand how harmful such policies would be to businesses and workers.
Biden’s budget also proposes roughly $43.5 billion in tax hikes on U.S. gas and oil production. Given that 70% of Americans already blame Biden for soaring gas prices, this tax hike looks to be another political dagger for Biden and vulnerable Democrats. Moreover, a HarrisX poll from last year showed that 58% of Americans were not willing to raise taxes to “address climate change” – the centerpiece of the radical left’s Green New Deal agenda. Biden’s budget would vigorously fund it, again putting Democrats from purple districts in a tough spot this fall.
Nearly all of the tax proposals in Biden’s budget are also in clear violation of his central campaign promise that no one making under $400,000 a year would pay a penny more in taxes. Taxes for the middle class would almost certainly increase under Democrats’ plan – something that voters clearly realize. Even back in September, a YouGov poll showed 55% believe the middle class would in fact end up paying more under Biden proposals.
As the economy continues to struggle under failed Democrat economic policies, taxes and government spending as a voter issue will likely only grow more important in coming months. A YouGov poll from earlier this month shows that 57% of voters already say taxes and government spending are “very important” to them. As inflation numbers worsen, that number is sure to increase.
How this might affect the November elections is perhaps most evident in a Fabrizio Lee poll showing that in almost all battleground states, voters prefer Trump on tax policy over Biden by roughly 19 points. Trump, for context, passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which delivered historic tax cuts. GDP soared and unemployment fell as a result.
While polls are only one measure of voter sentiment, other observations also point to Democrat vulnerability on tax policy – namely, the fact that Americans are already voting on the tax issue with their feet. According to the Tax Foundation, liberal New York and California came in 1st and 4th place for states with the highest state and local tax burden this year. Pair this with a recent report from the American Legislative Exchange Council showing that last year California and New York were among the top ten states for outbound migration, while Florida has one of the lowest tax burdens and was among the top ten states ten for inbound migration, and the picture that emerges is one of a country where people are rejecting higher taxes by moving out of tax-heavy states and into low-tax states.
Many Americans are no doubt still grumbling about the bill they had to pay to Uncle Sam this year, particularly with inflation and record-high gas prices now also eating into the paychecks of working families along with taxes. But if Joe Biden and his allies in Congress have their way, that number is set to increase exponentially thanks to Biden’s 2023 budget. But the massive tax bill Democrats are eagerly pushing for might come with an equally massive political price at the ballot box: Democrats’ congressional majorities. While the Left may be hoping to remake America through radical tax-and-spend schemes, all available evidence says such plans are a one-way ticket to being out of power for a long, long time.
Claire Brighn is the pen name of a conservative researcher and writer with previous domestic and foreign policy experience in the Executive Branch.