Who Wants to Raise Taxes?

• Published date: 01 March 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912920977911
• Date: 01 March 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

2022, Vol. 75(1) 35 –46

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912920977911

Political Research Quarterly

© 2020 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912920977911

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Introduction

This study employs state-level samples of public opinion

to examine how rates of state taxes, state tax burden, and

state tax increases correspond with attitudes about

increasing state taxes and about which tax should be

increased. Specifically, when presented a scenario where

a state budget must be balanced with spending cuts or tax

increases, who wants to raise taxes? Furthermore, when

faced with a scenario where taxes must rise, which tax do

people choose? We develop and test hypotheses about

how people consider state sales taxes versus state income

taxes under these scenarios.

In addition to individual-level factors that might struc-

ture attitudes about state taxes, we are also interested in

how state-level taxation might affect attitudes about state

taxes. We examine whether attitudes were related to how

high specific taxes were, to how much taxes were recently

raised, and to the overall burden of state taxes. Framing

our questions slightly differently, is public opinion sensi-

tive to actual tax policy, above and beyond attitudes

structured by partisanship, ideology, and individual

self-interest?

There is a sizable literature about public attitudes

toward taxes in the United States (for summaries, see

Campbell 2009; Williamson 2015, 2017), and literature

documenting which taxes people like the least (Cole and

Kincaid 2006; Kincaid and Cole 2001). Yet, there has

been limited examination of how attitudes about state

taxes may be affected by how people experience taxes.

Campbell (2009, 157) examined aggregated trends in

attitudes over time and suggests they reflect that taxes are

more unpopular when they are higher. That is, the prop-

erty tax was less unpopular after the “property tax revolt”

cuts of the late 1970s and 1980s, and the federal income

tax was rated less unpopular after the George W. Bush–

era tax cuts. Bowler and Donovan (1995) also found that

attitudes about which state or local tax was “the worst

tax” varied systematically with actual tax levels in a state.

Yet, these works could not examine whether tax rates

individuals experienced, or changes in those tax rates,

corresponded with their attitudes about raising taxes.

Self-Interest and Taxes

One view of economic self-interest is that people who

pay more taxes will be less receptive to raising taxes.

Yet, a range of public opinion research searching for

977911PRQXXX10.1177/1065912920977911Political Research QuarterlyDonovan and Bowler

research-article2020

1Western Washington University, Bellingham, USA

2University of California, Riverside, USA

Corresponding Author:

Todd Donovan, Department of Political Science, Western

Washington University, MS 9082, Bellingham, WA 98225, USA.

Email: Todd.donovan@wwu.edu

Who Wants to Raise Taxes?

Todd Donovan1 and Shaun Bowler2

Abstract

We test hypotheses about individual-level (partisanship and self-interest) and state-level (tax policy) factors that may

shape public attitudes about raising taxes. Respondents were given a scenario where a state budget needed to be

balanced with spending cuts or tax increases, and a scenario where either state sales or state income taxes would be

increased. We find partisanship, ideology, and self-interest had substantial relationships with how people responded.

Democrats, liberals, and those with fewer resources preferred tax increases over spending cuts, and preferred income

tax increases over sales tax increases. Republicans (particularly wealthy Republicans), conservatives, and those with

more resources preferred spending cuts to tax increases, and preferred sales tax increases over income tax increases.

We also find income tax increases and higher tax burdens may correspond with preferences for cutting spending

rather than raising taxes, but variation in the rates of a particular tax was not associated with attitudes about raising

that tax. Our results suggest an electorate that may be somewhat more sophisticated about fiscal policy than what

has been portrayed in several influential studies.

Keywords

public opinion, taxes, tax policy, state politics

Article