Majority Supports Wealth Redistribution By Taxing The Rich

The top chart doesn't surprise me much. It shows that about 61% of the general public believes the rich don't pay enough in taxes. That has been true for quite a while now, and at times has been even higher. The Democrats would like to raise taxes on the rich by a fairly small amount, and that chart shows a majority of Americans would support that.

But the chart below is a surprise. It shows that 52% of the public thinks the government should redistribute the nation's wealth through heavy taxation of the rich (while 46% opposes that). That's a lot different from just raising taxes on the rich. It involves heavy taxation, and doing that to redistribute wealth (once considered a bad thing). It is only in the last decade that this has become more popular.

It looks like the Bush recession has had an effect on the public. They now see the economic playing field as favoring the rich. They have seen the rich fully recover from the recession, while other Americans continue to struggle (and actually fall further behind each year thanks to rising inflation and stagnant wages).

The public wants a change. What they need to understand is that change cannot happen until conservative Republicans are voted out of power. Note on the chart below that conservatives and Republicans don't want a change. They are happy with things as they are.

These charts are from a new Gallup Poll -- done between April 6th and 10th of a random national sample of 1,015 adults, with a margin of error of 4 points.