POLL: New BBB toxic back home
POLITICO has new polling from AAN in three House Districts across the country showing Biden’s new “reconciliation” package is toxic back home, and Members of Congress who vote yes on the proposal will be stuck defending massively unpopular policies.
Raising taxes in the middle of a recession, tax breaks for wealthy elites to purchase luxury electric vehicles and doubling the size of the IRS were all unpopular, with over 50% of respondents less likely to vote for Members who supported them.
Members should think twice before voting for this dangerous plan.
In case you missed it, check out the POLITICO write up below and for the full polling memo, click here.
Internal GOP polling in three swing districts is offering a warning sign to House Democrats about certain provisions in their sweeping climate and health bill.
POLITICO | Sarah Ferris | August 9, 2022
https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/08-9-2022/house-dem-warning-signs/
What’s happening: The American Action Network, a nonprofit with close ties to House GOP leadership, found that some of the bill’s climate and tax pieces made voters much less likely to support Democratic incumbents in key battleground districts. Those members: Reps. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) and Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.)
The group centered its polling on three provisions: Tax increases on businesses; $7,500 tax breaks on “luxury” electric cars and hiring more IRS agents. The polling itself — which was conducted in early August and shared first with POLITICO — was light on policy details on the sweeping bill, which spends more than $300 billion into climate change and clean energy, and imposes a 15 percent minimum tax on large corporations.
Still, it found that voters were less likely to support the Democratic incumbent when they learned the bill would raise taxes “on American businesses in a recession” or for “wealthy families to buy luxury electric cars.”
The least popular provision, according to the poll, is the electric vehicle tax break. For example, the poll asked voters if they would be more or less likely to support a lawmaker if they backed a bill with a $7,500 tax break for “luxury” electric cars. The results: 61 percent of respondents in Slotkin’s district said they’d be less likely to support that member, 55 percent in Maloney’s district said they’d be less likely, and 60 percent in Cuellar’s district said they’d be less likely.
“Key provisions in the ‘Build Back Better’ plan are toxic and House Members who vote for the plan will have to defend wildly unpopular policies,” Domenic Re, the group’s polling director, wrote in a memo.
To be sure: Democrats will sell it differently: The party is celebrating the bill as a once-in-a-generation investment in climate programs, as well taking a huge bite out of the nation’s deficit by taxing the nation’s biggest companies.