Poll: GOP Tax Cuts Increasingly Less Popular with Voters

Yesterday was tax day and as I drove to our accountant's office to drop of signed forms to permit electronic filing and drop off sizable checks made out to the IRS and the Virginia Department of Taxation (the big check was to the IRS) I happened to tune in to statements being made by the congressional  Republicans that proclaimed their massive cuts to the very rich and huge corporations as beneficial to American taxpayers.  It was enough to make me want to vomit given the rank dishonesty of the the GOP statements.   As I spoke with our accountant about how out of whack our estimated tax payments for 2017 turned out to be - hence the need to write big checks - I received the additional news that the Trump/GOP tax law "reform" would make our tax situation even worse in 2018.  Little mention has been made to all of the small business deductions being eliminated or capped.   The results of a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll suggests that more and more Americans are increasingly coming to realize that the GOP/Trump tax "reform" was a massive screw job for most taxpayers, especially small business owners, which only lavished substantial benefits on the 1%.   Here are highlights from CNBC on the poll findings:

As congressional Republicans fight to preserve their majorities, they may need to find a weapon more powerful than the big December tax cuts.

The new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that the tax-cut law, never broadly popular, has sagged in public esteem lately. Just 27 percent of Americans call it a good idea, down from 30 percent in January. A 36 percent plurality call it a bad idea, while the rest have no opinion.

Moreover, a majority gives thumbs-down on the plan when asked to consider its potential effects. Just 39 percent foresee a positive impact from a stronger economy, more jobs and more money in their pockets; 53 percent foresee a negative impact from higher deficits and disproportionate benefits for the wealthy and big corporations.

"Not a great starting point" for the fall campaign, said Fred Yang, a Democratic pollster who conducted the survey with Republican counterpart Bill McInturff.

Republicans began learning that lesson last month during a special House election in Pennsylvania. GOP strategists found the tax cuts an ineffective message against the Democratic candidates and dropped the issue as Election Day approached.

The Democratic victory in a district President Donald Trump had won by 20 percentage points in 2016 showed that tax cuts are "a political loser," says David Wasserman, a House analyst at the Cook Political Report.

[W]orking-class, middle-class and upper-class Americans all hold negative views of the tax-cut law. Women who have graduated from college call the tax cuts a bad idea by nearly a 3-to-1 margin.

Overall, the NBC/WSJ Poll shows Democrats with a seven-point edge over Republicans, 47 percent to 40 percent, on which party Americans want to win control of Congress this fall. Just 39 percent of Americans approve of Trump's job performance, while 57 percent disapprove.

One can only hope that the full realization of how badly Republicans betrayed the vast majority of Americans sets in before election day in November, 2018.