Americans by a wide majority want to extend former President George W. Bush’s tax cuts, and more than half believe that letting them expire will further hurt the country’s shaky economy, according to a survey released yesterday.
Fifty-four percent said they wanted the Bush cuts to stay in effect, according to the Rasmussen survey of 1,000 likely voters taken Aug. 1 and 2.
The cuts were enacted in 2001, with some measures added in 2003, but are set to expire at the end of this year unless Congress extends them.
Thirty percent want them to expire while 16 percent are undecided.
Not surprisingly, an overwhelming majority of Republicans — 83 percent — want to continue the tax cuts. More than half — 58 percent — of independents agree, compared to only 23 percent of Democrats.
Of the Democrats surveyed, 53 percent believe the tax cuts should end.
Respondents were more closely divided when asked whether they wanted the tax cuts — which lowered rates on all income levels — to continue for even the wealthiest Americans.
Forty-eight percent want the cuts to remain for all Americans, including the wealthy, and 40 percent want everyone but the rich to benefit.
The pollsters didn’t define “wealthy.”
President Obama wants to keep the tax cuts for individual filers earning less than $200,000 or couples with a combined income of less than $250,000.
A tax hike on high-earning Americans would be bad for the economy, according to 38 percent of the people polled, while almost the same number, 33 percent, believe it would help the economy — a huge drop from last year.
In February 2009, 51 percent of those asked said they believed raising taxes on people who make more than $250,000 a year would boost the economy.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who is facing a tough re-election fight, will take up legislation to address the tax cuts in September — setting the stage for a Senate showdown right before the midterm elections.
“I expect it to be on the floor in September,” Reid spokesman Jim Manley told The Hill, the publication that covers Congress.
The debate surrounding the tax hikes could make the bare-knuckles battle over health care seem like a garden party.
Republicans likely will seek to paint their opponents as tax-happy liberals eager to kill the economy, while Dems will try to portray the GOP as the party interested in protecting only the elite.