Every week it seems there's a new study or statistic that some interest group or other can use to claim that North Carolina does or does not have an unusually high tax burden. When it comes to the perceptions of voters though it's no contest- North Carolinians think they pay higher taxes than people in other states.
59% of voters in the state feel that way compared to 26% who think North Carolina's taxes are about the same as other places and 10% who feel that the state has lower taxes. It's a sentiment that there's bipartisan consensus on- 70% of Republicans, 56% of independents, and 52% of Democrats think that residents of the state pay more than average.
So do these numbers spell big trouble for Democrats as they try to keep control of the General Assembly this fall? I doubt it. Only 3% of voters in the state say taxes are the most important issue to them. And although we've never asked this particular question before I imagine the numbers would have been pretty similar even when the state had Republican Governors or for the brief time it had a Republican House. And it's harder for Republicans to use this as a wedge issue when voters across party lines feel the state has unusually high taxes- there's a pretty large segment of the electorate that feels that way and is still perfectly content to vote for Democratic candidates.
I would, however, advise Democratic candidates not to try to convince voters that North Carolina's taxes aren't unusually high. The perception is so widely held that it's probably immutable. Better to focus on the positive aspects of the state that result from them.
Full results here
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
"Only 3% of voters in the state say taxes are the most important issue to them."
Taxes aren't at the very top because government budget problems are fundamentally government SPENDING problems. Government SPENDS TOO MUCH; it does not tax too little!! Therefore, budget hawks are more likely to say "deficits" or "spending" rather than "taxes" because the cause of all deficit problems are always and everywhere spending problems, not problems of taxes not being high enough.
And taxes are indeed a wedge issue. We've seen it again and again: any time a political leader wisely proposes the ease the tax burden that is thrust upon the people, the government employees unions and teachers unions scream bloody murder. Taxes are a great wedge issue to separate non-union voters from government employee union members.
This is the preeminent demographic issue in the future: the crushing BURDEN that unionized government employees represent on the backs of taxpayers.
Taxes are too high in each and every state in the union, as well as at the federal level. This is a winning issue for anyone with eyes to see it, even Democrats.
“We’re paying high taxes but we’re getting low services. Worse, the unions’ pay-today-forget-about-tomorrow attitude failed to plan for an economic downturn. As a result, the state and many cities and towns are looking into the abyss of insolvency. It is all coming to a head this year. Obama and Boxer are on the crushable side of a tsunami of voter discontent.” (Mickey Kaus)
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/The-case-against-the-public-employee-unions-91595744.html
Not just in NC and CA but also NJ (all states that were awarded to Obama in 2008):
NJ Governor Chris Christie winning the battle against teachers unions
"Like their fellow citizens in 54 percent of school districts across the state, the people of Sparta [New Jersey] rejected their local district’s proposed budget yesterday. That’s the highest rate of school budget rejections since 1976, according to the New Jersey Star Ledger. Why? Taxpayers are tired of the relentlessly increasing per-pupil cost of public schooling at a time when their own household budgets are under pressure. It helped that popular new governor Chris Christie recommended that voters reject their districts’ budgets unless the teachers unions agreed to a one year salary freeze."
Even in deep blue NJ, voters are recognizing the problem: SPOILED UNION BRATS leeching off taxpayers, seizing households' earnings by the coercive power of the State.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/nj-governor-chris-christie-winning-the-battle-against-teachers-unions.html
More evidence that high taxes are wearing on the nerves of voters and elected leaders:
"(Republican NJ Gov. Chris Christie) has received some support from the Democratic president of the state Senate, Stephen Sweeney, a leader of a local ironworkers union. This suggests waning solidarity between unionized private-sector workers who are weary of paying ever-higher taxes to enrich unionized public employees.
...Christie notes that New Jersey's police officers, the nation's highest paid, can retire after 25 years at 65 percent of their highest salary. In the state that has the nation's fourth-highest percentage (66) of public employees who are unionized, he has joined the struggle that will dominate the nation's domestic policymaking in this decade -- to break the ruinous collaboration between elected officials and unionized state and local workers whose affections the officials purchase with taxpayers' money."
More signs of how radically the left is opposed to the will of the American people:
15,000 Illinois Protesters Chant "Raise My Taxes"; Unions Getting More Aggressive and Obnoxious; Record Turnout in N.J. Tells Unions to Go to Hell
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/04/15000-illinois-protesters-chant-raise.html
"Huge Anti-Union Backlash Starting
If unions think these outrageous tactics are going to bring them sympathy from the public, they are sadly mistaken.
Thus, as disgusting as those rallies are, I am grateful for them. Anyone in the private sector out of a job, or with a 401-K chopped to bits, or anyone who has had to take a huge cut in pay is going to be disturbed and angered by those union images and videos."
The fourth post above came from a recent George Will column, referring to Governor Christie as the "Trenton Thunder". Sorry for leaving out credit where credit is due.
Post a Comment