The GOP tax bill just got another ugly review

Advertisement
The GOP tax bill just got another ugly review

donald trump paul ryan

Alex Brandon/AP Images

President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan

Advertisement
  • A new CBS News poll found that 35% of Americans approved of the GOP tax bill, while 53% disapproved.
  • Additionally, 76% of people thought the plan would benefit corporations while just 31% said it would help the middle class.
  • The CBS poll is another data point in a growing pile of negative reviews for the tax bill.


The Republican tax bill just got hit with another doozy of a poll on Thursday, adding to the growing amount of data showing Americans don't like the bill.

A new CBS News poll found that 35% of Americans approve of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), while 53% disapprove. While approval was unsurprisingly split along party lines, independents were also opposed to the plan, with 33% approving rate and a 52% disapproving/

Meanwhile, 41% of Americans surveyed said they believed their taxes would increase under the TCJA. The Joint Committee on Taxation, the official congressional scorekeeper, found that only 8% of Americans would get a tax increase in 2019 under the Senate bill, though that number would rise to 22.9% in 2027.

The poll also suggested that Americans weren't buying into the GOP argument that the plan was designed as a middle-class tax cut. Only 31% said it would help the middle class, while 69% said it would help wealthier Americans most and 76% said it would benefit corporations.

Advertisement

Also, just 28% said they believed businesses would create more jobs because of the TCJA, while 64% said they would not.

The poll come on the heels of two surveys from Gallup and Quinnipiac University on Tuesday. The Gallup poll showed an approval-disapproval spread of 29% to 56%, while the Quinnipiac poll showed a spread of 29% to 53%.

Even before the latest polls, the TCJA was the least popular major tax bill since 1980, even drawing less approval than two tax-hike bills in the 1990s.

Since the House and Senate passed two different version of the TCJA, the bills are set to move to a conference committee where members from both chambers will work out the differences. From there, the House and Senate will have to vote on the unified bill.