Americans Support the New Tax Bill

ABC News and the Washington post polled Americans a few days before the tax bill was passed to determine how much support the deal had. The results are below:

 
A portion of Kevin Drum‘s analysis of the results is below:

Why are so many more people in favor of an estate tax cut they’ll never see but not in favor a payroll tax cut that will put immediate money in their own pockets?

Possible answers: (a) people don’t really understand that cutting payroll taxes means they’ll see an immediate increase in their take home pay, (b) people associate payroll taxes so strongly with Social Security solvency that they don’t want to cut them, (c) people fantastically overestimate how likely they are to have a $5 million estate when they die, (d) lots of people have a strong instinctive view that people should be able to pass on their wealth to their kids no matter how much it is, (e) people are just generally confused about all this stuff and it’s hopeless to try and figure out what’s really going on.

Kevin Drum, Tax Cut Deal Wildly Popular, Mother Jones, Dec. 13, 2010. See also Gary Langer, Poll: Broad Backing for Obama-GOP Tax Deal, abc news, Dec. 13, 2010.

Special thanks to Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this to my attention.