Many polls show that large majorities of the public want to raise tax rates on people earning over $250,000 per year. But in an interesting recent post on the Democrats’ approach to tax policy, Megan McArdle cites an interesting 2012 poll of likely voters conducted for The Hill,
which shows that the vast majority of Americans prefer rates that are
much lower than those that existed even before the the recent fiscal
cliff deal. … Support for relatively low tax rates was not limited to Republicans
or high-income earners. Indeed, low tax rates for the wealthy got their
highest level of support from relatively low-income survey respondents,
and their lowest level from the wealthy themselves. …

Why is it that large majorities simultaneously support increasing
income taxes on people earning over $250,000 per year, but also believe
that they should be taxed at a lower rate than existed even before the
recent fiscal cliff deal raised it for individuals earning over
$400,000, and families earning over $450,000? As The Hill points out,
the most likely explanation is political ignorance. Most people probably
don’t know what tax rates are currently in force, especially for people
in income classes other than their own. … If most of the public is indeed ignorant on this point, it would be consistent with extensive political ignorance on a wide range of other issues, including fiscal policy and the federal budget. …

To be clear, I am not suggesting that raising tax rates above 30% is a bad idea merely because the vast majority of the public
opposes it. Most of the public has little understanding of the relevant
arguments and data. Their views are only a weak indicator at best of the
desirability of particular tax rates. But the data do suggest that
ignorance of current tax rates may be a strong influence on the
distribution of public opinion on tax issues. And public opinion, in
turn, has an influence on policy, even if it’s not the only factor
affecting it.