(Rasmussen Reports) – Voters continue to believe that raising taxes and increasing government spending will dig our economy deeper in a hole, and they don’t see things getting any better under the Obama administration.
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey, conducted after last week’s elections, finds that 58% of Likely U.S. Voters say tax increases will hurt the economy. Just 18% feel increasing taxes will help our economy, while 14% say it will have no impact. These findings show little change since early April of last year.
Similarly, a solid majority (58%) believe increases in government spending will hurt the country fiscally, while only 24% feel it will help. Ten percent (10%) say more government spending will have no impact. These findings, too, show little change since June 2009.
Given this information, the bad news for the president is that 64% of voters think under the Obama administration, government spending will go up. Only seven percent (7%) think it will go down, and another 26% say it will stay the same.
A plurality (43%) thinks its personal taxes will go up during the Obama years, but nearly as many (41%) expect their tax load to stay about the same. Just 10% believe their taxes will go down under this president.
The survey of 1,000 Likely U.S. Voters was conducted on November 3-4, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.
Just over half (52%) of voters nationwide say decreases in government spending will help the economy, a finding that hasn’t changed much in over a year. Twenty-five percent (25%) say those decreases will hurt economic conditions in the country. Fourteen percent (14%) say cutting government spending will have no impact.
Sixty-one percent (61%) of all voters believe tax cuts will improve the nation’s economy, while only 18% feel the opposite is true. Another 14% think cutting taxes will have no impact on the country.
Most Republicans and voters not affiliated with either of the major parties generally favor lower taxes and less government spending. Democratic voters tend to be more narrowly divided on the questions.
Obama hopes to extend the Bush tax cuts for everyone except those who earn more than $250,000 per year, thereby raising taxes on those he views as wealthy. But 52% of voters favor a candidate who promises to oppose all tax increases as opposed to one who would raise taxes only on the rich. Thirty-eight percent (38%) prefer a candidate would vote to raise taxes only on the rich.
Voters continue to have decidedly mixed feelings about last year’s $787-billion economic stimulus plan. Thirty-four percent (34%) say the stimulus plan has helped the economy, but 39% say it has hurt instead.
In late October, 41% of voters said their representative in Congress should be reelected if he or she voted for the stimulus plan, but 50% didn’t see it that way and said someone who voted that way should not be reelected.
Many states are currently in a budget crisis, and most Americans think politicians, not taxpayers, are to blame.
Most voters regularly say they prefer a government with fewer services and lower taxes rather than one with more services and higher taxes.
