Americans' Views of Taxes -- Another Look

A report published today by Media Matter for America and the Campaign for America's Future challenges the conventional wisdom that the ideological attitude of Americans regarding taxation is conservative. A majority of Americans think their taxes are too high, a conservative theme, but they don't care about it that much. Taxes generally rank low in the list of Americans' priorities, and taxes are never number one. The report cites an April 2007 Gallop poll indicating that fully 41 percent of Americans believe that amount they pay in taxes is not too high or too low, but "just right." The question of whether the era of "tax and spend" --in which government grew inexorably on a tide of invisible tax increases through Republican and Democratic administrations -- is ready to be challenged is explored in further depth in this article in the Washington Monthly.
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