Tax Bill Gets Even More Unpopular

In Defying the Odds, we discuss the tax issue in the 2016 campaign.  

Jennifer Agiesta at CNN:

With the House of Representatives set to vote on the Republican tax reform bill Tuesday before sending it to the Senate and then the President's desk for signing on Wednesday, the plan faces growing opposition and a widespread perception that it will benefit the wealthy more than the middle class, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.

Opposition to the bill has grown 10 points since early November, and 55% now oppose it. Just 33% say they favor the GOP's proposals to reform the nation's tax code.

Related: Full poll results

Two-thirds see the bill as doing more to benefit the wealthy than the middle class (66%, vs. 27% who say it'll do more to benefit the middle class) and almost four in 10 (37%) say that if the bill becomes law, their own family will be worse off. That's grown five points since early November. Just 21% say they'll be better off if the bill becomes law.

Jacob Pramuk at CNBC:

Forty-seven percent of those surveyed said they disapprove of the similar bills passed by the House and Senate, the Monmouth University poll released Monday said. Only 26 percent of respondents said they approve, while 19 percent had no opinion and 8 percent wanted to wait to draw a conclusion until they saw a final bill.

For Republicans, the survey is just the latest in a string of dismal public opinion polls on the GOP tax plan. In a separate poll out Monday, the CNBC All-American Economic Survey found that 70 percent believe their taxes in the next couple of years will either stay the same or increase.

 Casey Tolan at The San Jose Mercury News:

More than half of California voters, 51 percent, oppose the tax bill, and just 30 percent support it, a poll released Monday found. Most believe only corporations and the super rich will benefit — not them.

But opinions are sharply divided along partisan lines, with 67 percent of Democrats opposing the bill and 60 percent of Republicans supporting it. It could become a defining issue for California members of Congress in next year’s hotly contested midterm elections.

“Democrats are tending to believe what the Democratic leadership are saying,” said Mark DiCamillo, the director of the poll, “and Republicans are believing what their leadership is saying.”

The poll, conducted by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, surveyed 1,000 California registered voters between Dec. 7 and 16.

...
 The Berkeley poll found that just 17 percent of respondents believed that the bill would be good for California, while 52 percent said it would be bad for the state.

And only 20 percent of state voters say they think they’ll personally benefit from the bill, compared with 40 percent who think it will harm their finances. People at every household income level, from less than $20,000 to more than $100,000, agreed it would be bad for them.