President Donald Trump made his way to Springfield, Missouri, earlier this week to speak about tax reform – and it came at a much needed time.
While we were once a group of colonies that was prepared to fight a war over a puny little tax on tea, America is now a country where tax revenues are equal to nearly a third of our nation’s GDP. While it’s true that top earners in America bear the brunt of the burden of taxation, that doesn’t mean the amount that falls on everyone else is insignificant. In fact, if you’re the average household, you spend more on taxes than food and clothing… combined!
In fact, the only single expense that costs the average household more than taxes every year is the cost of housing itself! And even that comes close, with an average of $18,886 spent on housing last year, but “only” $11,128 of that being for shelter itself, and the remaining $7.7k on related expenses (utilities, etc.).
So with that in mind, it should come as no surprise that there’s broad support for Trump’s plan to simplify the tax code and give us all some much needed tax relief. And even better news, that support is concentrated in states that Trump won in the 2016 election, meaning that despite his low poll numbers, he hasn’t lost his base of support.
Here were the findings of two polling firms, Definers Public Affairs and WPA Intelligence, that partnered to measure opinion on tax reform:
- Florida: 63.1% support Trump’s tax plan; while 36.9% oppose it
- Indiana: 68.4% support; 31.6% oppose
- Michigan: 62.6% support, 37.4% oppose
- Missouri: 72.5% support, 27.5% oppose
- Montana: 75.0% support; 25.1% oppose
- North Dakota: 72.8% support, 27.2% oppose
- Ohio: 67.2% support, 32.8% oppose
- Pennsylvania: 56.6% support, 43.4% oppose
- West Virginia: 77.3% support, 22.7% oppose
- Wisconsin: 68.8% support, 31.2% oppose
Another poll commissioned by America First Policies “found that 71 percent want lower taxes for ‘ordinary, middle-class families,’ 72 percent think the existing tax code is ‘archaic,’ and 68 percent would like to see simpler code in which ‘millions of Americans could file their own taxes using just one sheet of paper.'”
There’s widespread support for tax reform – the challenge will be selling it. Democrats are unquestionably going to portray any tax cuts as “tax cuts for the rich” if the rich end up benefitting from reform. Yes, a 1 percent tax cut for top earners is going to save them more dollars than a 20 percent tax cut for the average earner – but is that really something to complain about?
Of course not. With roughly 70 percent of Americans agreeing with Trump’s tax plan, it would appear that more Americans want tax reform than not.
Share this story if you want tax reform!
