Off the scale

A Quinnipiac poll from April 2019:

"Do you support or oppose raising the tax rate to 70% on an individual's income that is over $10 million dollars?"  36% support, 59% oppose

A CNN poll from February 2019:

"Would you favor or oppose raising the personal income tax rate for those with very high incomes, so that income of ten million dollars or more would be taxed at a rate of 70%?"   41% favor, 52% oppose

A CBS News Poll from September 2009:

"If the Obama Administration proposed a tax of 50 percent or higher on the incomes of the very wealthiest millionaires, would you support it, or not?"  51% yes, 45% no

I was going to post this a couple of weeks ago, but various news events diverted my attention until a column by Paul Krugman brought it back to mind. He asks why, during a time of rising inequality, the government has cut taxes on people with high incomes.  He says "the answer is that huge disparities in income and wealth translate into comparable disparities in political influence."  Although that's certainly part of the answer, the results above show that there's another part--there's not much popular support for high tax rates, even when those rates apply only to people with very high incomes. Even people who are towards the bottom of the economic ladder aren't very enthusiastic.  The Quinnipiac results were not broken down by income, but only 31% of whites without a college degree, 51% of blacks, and 47% of Hispanics supported a 70% tax. 

This relates to an issue I've written about before.  It's sometimes said that most people are to the left on economic issues.  This suggests that the only way conservatives can win elections is by diverting their attention to "culture war" issues, or race, or some other area where the right has an advantage.  But the idea that the public is to the left on economic issues is wrong--in addition to the lack of support for high tax rates, there's not much support for inheritance taxes.  This doesn't mean that the public is conservative on economic issues--for example, most people are in favor of maintaining or increasing Social Security benefits, increasing the minimum wage, and increasing taxes on corporations.  Public opinion on economic issues don't really fit on a left/right scale, but there is a logic behind it.  I recently ran across a piece that Krugman wrote in the late 1990s which gives some insight into that logic:

"To an Anglo-Saxon economist, France’s current problems do not seem particularly mysterious. Jobs in France are like apartments in New York City: Those who provide them are subject to detailed regulation by a government that is very solicitous of their occupants. A French employer must pay his workers well and provide generous benefits, and it is almost as hard to fire those workers as it is to evict a New York tenant. New York’s pro-tenant policies have produced very good deals for some people, but they have also made it very hard for newcomers to find a place to live. France’s policies have produced nice work if you can get it. But many people, especially the young, can’t get it. And, given the generosity of unemployment benefits, many don’t even try."

These kind of measures tend to be popular--maybe more so in France, but in the US as well. People are sympathetic to someone who might lose a job or apartment, or suddenly find that they have to accept worse conditions of life or work through no fault of their own (e. g., a tenant who is confronted with a rent increase, or a worker who faces wage or benefit cuts).   Of course, from a right-wing point of view, policies that protect "insiders" are undesirable because they interfere with the market.  A left-wing point of view is sympathetic to what those policies are trying to achieve, but sees them as seriously flawed--they usually reduce overall inequality, but aren't very efficient at doing so, and they produce other kinds of inequity. 

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]