Poll: Obama Should Keep Bush Tax Cuts to Get Presidency Back on Track
By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
President Obama may have bigger problems on his hands than reforming healthcare. For the first time, the Washington Whispers poll tested the public's appetite for continuing the Bush tax cuts, which start expiring next year, and it topped healthcare reform as the No. 1 idea that could help Obama reclaim his presidency. Over one third of those in the poll from Synovate eNation said keeping the tax rate low will help the president, just edging out his top priority at 33 percent: doing whatever it takes to reform healthcare. But continuing the cuts doesn't seem likely, since he campaigned against them and ridiculed them in his recent healthcare speech to Congress. The findings in our poll are similar to others recently that show Americans eager to keep taxes low while they wait out the recession.
Pollsters say that President Obama is on the verge of losing control of his presidency. What should he do to get it back on track?
| Continue the expiring Bush tax cuts | 35% |
|---|---|
| Whatever it takes to pass healthcare reform | 33% |
| Propose another major stimulus spending package | 17% |
| Immediately withdraw all troops from Iraq | 15% |
Source: The Synovate eNation Internet poll was conducted September 4-9 among 1,000 nationally representative households by global market research firm Synovate.
Tags: Barack Obama | George W. Bush | polls
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Reader Comments
Uncertainty, taxes, and business risk
I think currently the uncertainty of increasing taxes and government regulation is holding businesses back. Why would anyone take a chance to expand, start a new business, or hire now? It's a known fact that tax cuts encourage business startups and expansion, which in turn puts people to work, resulting in increased revenue received by state and federal government. How about cutting taxes for all to encourage job creation, a poor man never gave me a job.
For Tax Year 2007
Percentiles Ranked by AGI
AGI Threshold on Percentiles
Percentage of Federal Personal Income Tax Paid
Top 1% $410,096 40.42%
Top 5% $160,041 60.63%
Top 10% $113,018 71.22%
Top 25% $66,532 86.59%
Top 50% $32,879 97.11%
Bottom 50%<$32,879 2.89%
Note: AGI is Adjusted Gross Income
Source: Internal Revenue Service
FWIW: I'm self-employed and in Fed/State taxes I paid over $43k last year. I don't mind paying my share, but it's getting to where it's not worth the extra effort. I'll most likely reduce my hours (30-40%) in 2010 to avoid paying higher and higher taxes and fees.
Government should be helping create private sector jobs, NOT killing them. No goose, no golden eggs...
Bush tax cuts
The Bush Tax Cuts were good except for the house flipping part. That part should revert back to living in your personal residence for 5 years before making tax free profit. Also, under Bill Clinton, we made approx. $55,000, couldn't afford to get a loan to
finish building our house (we were paying as we built while living in a small garage). We made too much to get assistance for our kids to go to college, so we had to pay for that, at the same time, we were paying about $7,700/year in federal taxes. When we finally got a loan to finish the house, our tax bill was bigger than our house payment.
Now we are going to have to pay utility bills 9 times higher than the actual charge, due to taxes and service charges. (This is in AZ>) One of us has the "premium goverment" health insurance and our share of the premium has risen from $114./month to $297./mon. Every year when the cola raise comes, the insurance raises and takes 90% of the raise. Taxes take the rest. Under Bush, our retirement inomes totaled 38,653., we paid $3,248 in Fed. tax. That was in 2004.
We have since increased our income with somr long term capital gain, and the Bush tax cuts are helping us there until they expire.
Our pretax investments will be taxed at the full rate when we have to pull those out. Seems the goverment makes more interest on our investments than we do. We just unwittingly put up the money, while we could have been doing something better with it.
I was raised as a democrat, but will never ever vote for a democrat again. They are the party of the rich and infamous crooks as far as we are concerned.
Why do Dems hate jobs?
Unemployment was 4.5% when Dems gained control of Congress in 2006, currently it's 9.7% and still rising. Why does it seem Dems are constantly doing everything they can to destroy jobs by attacking small (and large) businesses? I used to think they were just stupid, but I'm beginning to think they're also dangerous. Nancy P., if you want the political environment to cool off how about trying to listen to the legitimate concerns of the American public. Just a thought...
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