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American Morning

Gallup Poll: Do Americans Care About a Tax Cut?

Aired May 22, 2001 - 11:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: As we've been talking about, the Senate is trying again today to get a big tax cut plan approved -- Republican leaders saying nothing else will get done until the plan is passed.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: A new CNN/"USA Today/Gallup poll asks folks across the U.S. how they feel about a major tax cut and how it might affect their pocketbooks and the economy.

We get more now on the numbers from the Gallup Poll's editor-in- chief, Frank Newport, in Princeton, New Jersey -- hi, Frank.

FRANK NEWPORT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, GALLUP POLL: Good morning. How are you, Kyra and Daryn?

In fact, when we have asked the public about a tax cut, for a number of months now, all the way back to the campaign, we always get: good idea in principle.

In fact, when we got back in Gallup polling for many years, we have always found Americans, in theory, think they are taxed too much. So, in theory, they like the idea of a tax cut. However, that doesn't mean that they are all excited about thinking they are going to get rich off of this, as I will show you in moment.

We asked it, actually, a couple times in May -- early May and just into the night or two ago: Do you favor or oppose the idea of a substantial tax cut being passed by Congress? Actually, it's gone up: 60 percent in early May -- and now this past weekend up to two-thirds of Americans saying: Yes, we're in favor of it.

A little partisanship here, by the way: Republicans more likely than Democrats to favorite it. In terms of Bush himself, 75 percent of the public says it will be a fulfillment of his campaign pledge -- and we think this an, actually, fairly high number -- about 49 percent of Americans say they this will be a major accomplishment for Bush -- maybe politically it's major, because he got it pushed through so quickly.

You can see only about 15 percent of the diehards over there say that it won't been seen as an accomplishment at all -- so, so far so good in terms of the public's perception what the Senate and the House are going to be doing. Will it have an impact? Well, we said, first of all: Do you think that if a tax cut -- actually, when it's passed -- it looks like it will -- will it have an impact on the U.S. economy?

And this is like half empty, half full. Just about a quarter say they think it will help the economy a lot. So if you want to look at it a little more negatively, you've got three-quarters of Americans saying it won't help a lot. But you've got about half of Americans saying it will help in general. But then another half of Americans say they don't think it is going to really have an impact on the economy.

Now, something Americans can speak to a little more specifically -- like you mentioned in your introduction there -- will it help you? What are you anticipating?

And these numbers are fairly low. Only 17 percent of Americans say they think the tax cut will have a lot of help for them personally in their family budget -- another 20 percent a little. But you've got over half of Americans there saying it won't affect them at all. Or, actually -- we're not sure why -- 11 percent say this will actually hurt them.

So, all in all, our bottom line on this: great that we have a tax cut, so say the American public, particularly Republicans. But we don't see a lot of Americans jumping up and down with excitement and getting ready to go buy new cars or anything like that.

Daryn, Kyra, that's were the public stands.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Frank.

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