Last month, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made a rather remarkable statement about the trillion-dollar Bush tax cuts, arguing, here’s no evidence whatsoever
“„Pew did a national poll which found that only 30 percent of respondents wanted to extend all of the Bush tax cuts, while 27 percent wanted to repeal them for the wealthiest taxpayers, and the plurality (31 percent) wanted to repeal ALL of the tax cuts (including, presumably, the ones which affect the respondents themselves!).
“„This is pretty amazing. We could argue to no end about the reasonableness of (effectively) raising taxes during a recession, but that’s not the point. Nor are the exact numbers themselves gospel — I imagine more than a few respondents are reacting to the “Bush” part of “Bush tax cuts,” and the option of sticking it to the unspecified “wealthy” does summon the populist rage in a bipartisan fashion. What’s really important here is that, while Democratic lawmakers are clamoring to get on the tax cut bandwagon(or off of the tax increase bandwagon, if you’re thinking about attack ads), Americans appear willing to have a reasonable conversation about taxes— that is, one in which raising taxes is at least on the table.