DOESN'T ANYONE BELIEVE IN MAGIC?:

Most Americans expect higher taxes: Nearly 70% of all Americans surveyed by Gallup say they expect higher taxes by the end of Obama's term. That could explain the difficulty selling a healthcare overhaul. (Mark Silva, August 21, 2009, LA Times)

Despite President Obama's promise that only taxpayers earning more than $250,000 a year will pay higher taxes to support the healthcare initiative that he is proposing, the vast majority of Americans surveyed believe that they will pay higher income taxes by the final year of Obama's term in 2012.

The apparently pervasive fear of higher taxes – with 68 percent of all Americans surveyed by the Gallup Poll saying they expect higher taxes by the end of Obama's term – could help explain widespread uncertainty about the president's plans for overhauling the delivery of health care and insurance. [...]

"Most Americans remain skeptical that the administration can pay for healthcare reform and its other programs without raising their taxes,'' Gallup's Jeffrey Jones reports today.

So when Democrats say they'll just pass the most expensive provisions of the health care bill on a party line vote, Americans will see them as going solo on a huge tax hike. Our last two tax increases cost George HW Bush and then the Democratic Congress their jobs.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 21, 2009 7:08 AM