Apparently the GOP meme that a tax hike for the wealthy would be unfair and bad for the economy is getting very little traction. As TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira explains in his latest ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’ at the Center for American Progress web pages, a recently released Pew Research Center poll indicates quite the opposite:.
To start, most people do not believe raising taxes on those making $250,000 or more would make the tax system more unfair. Only 21 percent of Americans endorse that idea, while more than double that number (44 percent) think raising taxes on the rich would actually make the system fairer. Another 24 percent think it would have no effect one way or the other on fairness.
As for the suggestion that raising taxes on the rich would hurt the economy, only 22 percent of Americans agree. Again, twice that number (44 percent) hold the directly opposite view–that raising taxes on the rich would help the economy. Another 25 percent do not think the economy would be affected negatively or positively.
As Teixeira concludes, “These data suggest that conservative arguments on taxing the rich do not convince the public. On the contrary, the public is clearly open to seeing taxes rise on the affluent. Policymakers need to take note.”
This year’s big media narrative has been the confirmation saga of Neera Tanden, Biden’s nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget. At New York I wrote about how over-heated the talk surrounding Tanden has become.
Okay, folks, this is getting ridiculous. When a vote in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on the nomination of Neera Tanden was postponed earlier this week, you would have thought it presented an existential threat to the Biden presidency. “Scrutiny over Tanden’s selection has continued to build as the story over her uneven reception on Capitol Hill stretched through the week,” said one Washington Post story. Politico Playbook suggested that if Tanden didn’t recover, the brouhaha “has the potential to be what Biden might call a BFD.” There’sbeen all sorts of unintentionally funny speculation about whether the White House is playing some sort of “three-dimensional chess” in its handling of the confirmation, disguising a nefarious plan B or C.
Perhaps it reflects the law of supply and demand, which requires the inflation of any bit of trouble for Biden into a crisis. After all, his Cabinet nominees have been approved by the Senate with a minimum of 56 votes; the second-lowest level of support was 64 votes. One nominee who was the subject of all sorts of initial shrieking, Tom Vilsack, was confirmed with 92 Senate votes. Meanwhile, Congress is on track to approve the largest package of legislation moved by any president since at least the Reagan budget of 1981, with a lot of the work on it being conducted quietly in both chambers. Maybe if the bill hits some sort of roadblock, or if Republican fury at HHS nominee Xavier Becerra (whose confirmation has predictably become the big fundraising and mobilization vehicle for the GOP’s very loud anti-abortion constituency) reaches a certain decibel level, Tanden can get out of the spotlight for a bit.
But what’s really unfair — and beyond that, surreal — is the extent to which this confirmation is being treated as more important than all the others combined, or indeed, as a make-or-break moment for a presidency that has barely begun. It’s not. If Tanden cannot get confirmed, the Biden administration won’t miss a beat, and I am reasonably sure she will still have a distinguished future in public affairs (though perhaps one without much of a social-media presence). And if she is confirmed, we’ll all forget about the brouhaha and begin focusing on how she does the job, which she is, by all accounts, qualified to perform.
