Editor’s note: Jon Margolis is VTDigger’s political columnist.
That was a very interesting poll revealed by the Coalition for a Tobacco Free Vermont last week, though perhaps not entirely the way the coalition intended.
It really wanted us to remember the response to one question: Would Vermonters favor a $1.25 per pack increase in the cigarette tax?
Boy, would they ever, concluded the poll, taken by the Mellman Group. Seventy-four percent of the respondents said they supported such a tax increase, with most of them pronouncing themselves strong supporters.
The prudent observer might want to take that result with a grain of something other than finely ground Burley. Consider the wording of the question: “Would you favor or oppose a $1.25 per pack increase in the state cigarette tax, with the revenue dedicated to making health care coverage more affordable, and to funding the program to prevent kids from becoming smokers and helping smokers quit?”
Not quite “Would you support this policy because it would lead to world peace and end global warming.” But a step in that direction. The Mellman Group is a reputable polling firm, and its methodology – live interviews with 500 registered voters conducted by both landline and cell phones – was impeccable. Still, the wording of the question, to put it gently, did not encourage a negative response.
More interesting, though, were the answers to the other poll questions. Those answers indicated that Vermonters are … well, kind of like everybody else in America, which is not how they think of themselves.
By large majorities, respondents opposed raising other taxes. Increase the rooms and meals tax? Fifty-seven percent said no. Raise the gasoline tax? Three-quarters of the folks are agin’it, and just about as many oppose raising the income tax. As to the property tax, fuggediboudit. A whopping 87 percent of Vermonters don’t want it to go up. The poll did not measure public opinion on one provision of the tax bill passed by the House of Representatives – restoring sales taxes on articles of clothing that cost less than $110. Does anyone want to bet that a majority doesn’t oppose that, too?
So just where would these tax-averse Vermonters cut government spending so the state would not have to raise more revenue?
Apparently nowhere. The poll showed large majorities against spending less on “low-income Vermonters” or cutting health care spending. The passage of all those school budgets last month indicates that voters are in no mood to eviscerate spending on education.
In other words, Vermonters want more benefits at a lower cost.
Well, who wouldn’t, if it can be managed? The problem is that it can’t be, at least not indefinitely. Adults should know that.
Again, who wouldn’t? But it does seem that when it comes to paying taxes, Vermonters are just like other Americans, whose attitude was best described years ago by the late Sen. Russell Long of Louisiana: “Don’t tax you. Don’t tax me. Tax that fellow behind that tree.”
Most Vermonters pride themselves at being both adult and politically liberal. They are the latter, at least when it comes to social issues, the environment, and even generosity toward the poor. But this poll indicates that they are no more liberal than other Americans when it comes to taxing, especially taxing themselves.
The tobacco tax results are no exception. Twenty-four percent of the respondents opposed raising the tax. According to the coalition, only 20 percent of Vermont adults smoke. Presumably just about all of them oppose raising the tobacco tax, and so, it seems, do 4 percent of the non-smokers.
The pro-increase majority, then, seems to be made up entirely of non-smokers, who, of course, do not pay that tax. They wouldn’t pay any price if the tax goes up. They want somebody else to pay the price.
Again, who wouldn’t? But it does seem that when it comes to paying taxes, Vermonters are just like other Americans, whose attitude was best described years ago by the late Sen. Russell Long of Louisiana: “Don’t tax you. Don’t tax me. Tax that fellow behind that tree.”
For most Vermonters, smokers are those fellows (of either gender) behind that tree.
Perhaps this anti-tax sentiment should be kept in mind when contemplating Gov. Peter Shumlin’s troubles with his own party over spending and taxing. The governor and his top aides wanted to design a major expansion of one of the state’s social programs – preschool education. Astute politicians didn’t need a new poll to tell them that voters don’t want to pay higher taxes.
So they firmly oppose raising taxes. Nor is this just crass politics. Astute office-holders know the danger of trying to cram policy down the collective throat of an unwilling public. Instead, to finance more early childhood education, they decided to cut funding for two other social programs – the Earned Income tax Credit and Reach Up (welfare).
For this, they are getting a lot of flack from liberals and Progressives in both the Legislature and the commentariat. But the administration had to get the money from somewhere. Proposing any other cuts would only have earned them comparable flack from other constituencies.
The liberals and Progressives want Shumlin to get the money by raising taxes on the wealthy. The House of Representatives voted to do that, if not by much, but the Senate is wary and the governor is adamantly opposed, again perhaps for reasons that transcend crass politics.
The Mellman poll did not specifically ask respondents if they would support higher income taxes only on the very rich. No doubt such a question would have recorded far more support than the 21 percent who favored raising income taxes in general.
But that’s not because most Vermonters are all that generous. It’s that there are even fewer very wealthy people than there are smokers. To most voters, then, the rich are “fellows behind that tree.”
But neither would the “tax the rich’ question recorded anything like the 74 percent who favor higher tobacco taxes. First of all, some non-rich people think they are going to get rich some day (most of them are wrong), and hope to have low tax bills when the time comes. Other non-rich people think that the wealthy deserve their bounty and should be left to enjoy it.
Most of the wealthy no doubt agree. For decades, they have been so forceful in making this point that they now pay less of their income in all taxes – federal, state, and local – than they have at any time since 1928.
An argument for raising those taxes? Maybe, but by and large astute politicians have good reason to be reluctant to call for higher taxes. It’s a democracy, after all, where the people reign, and the people, the Coalition for a Tobacco Free Vermont has reminded us, don’t like higher taxes.
Not, at least, on themselves or anyone they know.
