What AP Tax Poll Really Shows: Americans Want Better Services & The Rich to Pay More

It shows Americans are fed up with an unfair system of taxing and spending—and they have every right to be.

By William Rice

Headline findings from a recent poll conducted by the Associated Press and the University of Chicago give a false sense of where Americans really stand on taxes. The fact that majorities of taxpayers think the tax system is unfair, that they pay too much, and that they don’t get enough for their money is unsurprising given the rigged nature of our tax code and decades of underinvestment in our people. 

The poll does not prove Americans are anti-tax, as lobbyists for the rich and corporations are sure to claim in a bid to extract even more special breaks for their clients. It shows Americans are fed up with an unfair system of taxing and spending—and they have every right to be. 

Interviews with respondents included in the accompanying AP story provide vital context. One married couple was understandably angry that the tax code is “full of loopholes, especially for the wealthy.” The wife was quoted: “‘There are a lot of things you hear people with money are able to claim — an inside club.’” 

As for how tax dollars are used, a man said he wanted more to go to “‘national healthcare and investment in education.’” A woman also supported more funding for education, and for “‘the homeless—there are a lot of people under the bridges still.’”

In other words, Americans think public services should be improved and they think the rich should pay for it. And they’re correct on both counts. 

Though the number of people in this country with health insurance has increased in recent years thanks to the Affordable Care Act, 26 million still lack coverage. The federal government fails to adequately fund education for low-income students and those with special needs. The nation is in the midst of a housing crisis.

Yet billionaires and huge corporations can go years without paying any federal income tax. The biggest source of income for the ultra-rich—the increase in the value of their investments—can go untaxed forever. And corporations are rewarded with lower U.S. taxes the more facilities and jobs they ship offshore. 

President Biden and Congressional Democrats have begun to address both problems—too little investment in the American people and too little taxes paid by the rich and corporations—with necessary reforms. 

In 2022, they enacted the Inflation Reduction Act, which will lower prescription drug prices for seniors and cut utility costs for homeowners by confronting the climate crisis—paying for it all with higher taxes on big corporations and by cracking down on rich and corporate tax cheats.  Earlier in his presidency, Biden signed into law a plan that will repair roads and bridges, ensure families have clean drinking water, expand broadband internet and make other long-overdue investments in the nation’s infrastructure. 

And President Biden and his Democratic colleagues want to do more. Just last year, the president proposed a budget that would lower the costs working families pay for childcare, pre-K education, housing and college; lower the deficit by nearly $3 trillion; and fund it all with $4 trillion in new taxes exclusively on Americans making over $400,000 a year. No one making less than that amount would pay a penny more in taxes. 

Among Biden’s proposed tax reforms is a special tax on those worth over $100 million—including the nation’s billionaires—to ensure they pay something every year just like workers do now. The Democratic chairman of the Senate tax-writing committee has his own plan to better tax billionaires, who under current rules and when all of their income is included can pay lower tax rates than nurses, plumbers and teachers.  

Americans are not anti-tax—they’re angry with a broken tax-and-spending system that demands too little from the rich and corporations, and does too little for working families. Fix those problems, as President Biden and Congressional Democrats are trying to do, and future polls on taxes will likely turn up very different results.