Do voters want Trump's tax plan? Well, depends on how you frame it

Recently released polling from Navigator Research shows that many voters haven’t heard much about Donald Trump’s upcoming tax plans, which include extending his 2017 tax cuts for the rich. Those tax cuts are largely set to expire at the end of 2025.

Fifty percent of registered voters said they have heard “a little” or “nothing” about Trump’s tax plan, according to Navigator’s polling, which was fielded Dec. 5-8. Another 50% said they have heard “a lot” or “some” about the plan. 

When asked about their support for the plan—without being provided a description of it—voters split predictably down party lines, with 37% in favor of it and 39% opposed. About a quarter (24%) weren’t sure.

However, support changes dramatically based on how the plan is presented.

When presented with a Democratic framing of the plan—essentially, “tax cuts for the rich”—62% of voters opposed the plan, with only 25% supporting it. But when presented with a Republican framing—that the cuts will “lower taxes for everyone and unleash American business to improve our economy and bring down costs”—support flipped: 64% were in favor and 24% were opposed.

Such Republican messaging is fantasy, of course. The 2017 tax cuts didn’t deliver on those promises the first time around, skewing its benefits to the wealthy. And the cuts were unpopular around the time of their passage as well as later in his term.

Maybe more revealing is that Democratic messaging is more effective than Republican messaging when it focuses on the personal impact of the tax cuts.

Trump’s billionaire friends will benefit the most from tax giveaways. Billionaire Elon Musk, set to co-lead a toothless advisory commission on cutting government spending, has shown a willingness to use his social media platform X to distort information in Trump’s favor. And other billionaires, like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, seem just as willing.

And that’s before they’re offered billions more in government welfare.

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