Sources of Public Opinion on Taxes: the Florida Case

Beck, Paul; Dye, Thomas R.

doi:10.2307/2130290

Cited by 43 publications

(43 citation statements)

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“…Hawthorne and Jackson (1987) similarly find that partisanship does not influence tax preferences, but commitment to collective goals, such as economic redistribution do. Another interesting finding directly relevant to this 6 study is that party identification and ideology do not explain differences in attitude at the state and local level (Beck and Dye 1982). Cole and Kincaid find, though, that there are partisan differences in views of which level of government provides the most for their money.…”

Section: Political Valuesmentioning

confidence: 69%

“…Comparatively less work has explored how these explanatory variables might vary by level of government. There are important exceptions-e.g., Beck and Dye (1982)-but this work is now very old. In short, the current literature reveals very little about whether the factors that determine feelings about taxation depend on the level of government imposing those taxes.…”

Section: Attitudes Toward Taxesmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Several studies have found that blacks tend to view taxes more negatively than whites (Lovrich and Taylor 1976;Beck and Dye 1982;Beck et al 1990; Campbell accepted for publication, p. 59). Unfortunately, due to the existing literature's reliance on national samples, there is very little research into how Latinos and Asians view their tax burdens.…”

Section: Demographicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Confidence, Perception, and Politics in California: The Determinants of Attitudes toward Taxes by Level of Government

Wallsten¹,

Park²

2015

CJPP

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California faced a tremendous fiscal challenge in the wake of the 2008 recession. With high political hurdles to raising taxes, the state and local governments were forced to appeal directly to voters through ballot initiatives. Debates over these ballot initiatives, however, took place against the backdrop of increasingly acrimonious disagreements about taxation at the federal level. Unfortunately, researchers have little idea about how the dynamics of public opinion on tax issues operate across these various levels of government. This article asks: do the factors that shape attitudes towards taxation in California vary depending on the level of government levying those taxes? Analyzing results from a 2012 poll, this article finds some differences and some commonalities in the determinants of tax attitudes at the federal, state, and local level. More specifically, we find that: (1) attitudes toward taxes are more politicized at the federal level than at the state or local level; (2) confidence in government has a strong effect on tax attitudes but citizens draw clear distinctions between levels of government; (3) perceived self-interest does not influence tax attitudes at any level; and (4) there is a gender gap in attitudes toward taxation at the federal, state, and local levels.2

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Section: Political Valuesmentioning

confidence: 69%

Section: Attitudes Toward Taxesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Demographicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Confidence, Perception, and Politics in California: The Determinants of Attitudes toward Taxes by Level of Government

Wallsten¹,

Park²

2015

CJPP

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“…This means that a preference for savings in public services may have little to do with (macro-)economic or budgetary considerations, but with wider attitudes towards government and its role. This 'political disaffection' thesis suggests a positive relationship between political distrust and anti-tax sentiment (Rudolph, 2009: 144) -if you distrust government, you are more likely to think taxes are too high (Beck and Dye, 1982). Still, contrary to expectations, Rudolph (2009) found that political trust actually increases support for tax cuts (but only among Liberals).…”

Section: The Role Of Ideologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Savings in public services after the crisis: a multilevel analysis of public preferences in the EU-27

Walle

Jilke

2014

International Review of Administrative Sciences

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Policy responses to the global financial crisis can be divided into pro-and counter-cyclical approaches. The former advocates reducing public spending in times of financial constraints. The latter approach advocates public spending to boost the economy. Using public opinion (N=23,652) data from 27 EU member countries, we empirically test a model for citizen preferences for reducing spending in public services versus government investment in measures to boost the economy as a response to the financial crisis. We look at individual-and country-level determinants of attitudes to savings in public services, and concentrate on four groups of explanations: political disaffection, ideology, self-interest, and macro-economic conditions. It was found that political disaffection, and the respondent's ideological orientation all have effects on preferences, as well as whether one experiences economic strain or receives welfare services. Macro-economic conditions, such as a country's government deficit level, public debt or public expenditure have, surprisingly, no effect on citizens' financial policy preferences. We discuss the implications of our results for public administration theory and practice. Points for practitionersThe article analyses citizens' preferred government reactions to the financial crisis. It distinguishes between reducing public spending and measures to boost the economy. It was found that macro-economic conditions matter very little for these preferences. In fact, explanations for these attitudes and preferences need to be looked for primarily at the individual level, not the country level. Preferences for or against savings in public services are largely influenced by ideological dispositions, age, education, overall levels of political trust, and whether citizens are (potential) beneficiaries of welfare services. The article contributes to understanding why citizens support or oppose pro-or counter-cyclical policy measures to emerge from the crisis.

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“…The work of Sears and Citrin (1982) is a classic exception, insofar as the authors focus on the attitudes toward spending and taxation among Californian citizens in the wake of the tax revolt associated with Proposition 13 in the late 1970s. There are occasional studies of spending and taxation preferences among citizens in individual states (e.g., Beck and Dye, 1982;Garand and Blais, 2004), but there are no data sources that capture systematically the attitudes of the mass public towards state spending and taxation across states and over a long period of time. Hence, scholars rely on general measures of state mass ideology (Berry, Ringquist, Fording and Hanson, 1998;Berry, Fording, Ringquist, Hanson, and Klarner, 2010;Erikson, Wright, and McIver, 1993).…”

Section: Determinants Of State Spending Prioritiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fiscal Policy in the American States

Garand

Ulrich

2013

Oxford Handbooks Online

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This chapter reviews the recent scholarly literature on fiscal policy in the American states, focusing on several important topics: (1) size and growth of the public sector in the states; (2) how states determine expenditure and revenue priorities; (3) the politics of state budget deficits and surpluses; (4) the effects of fiscal policy on various political, economic, and social outcomes. The pace of scholarly research by political scientists on state fiscal policy has slowed considerably during the first decade of the 2000s, resulting in a leveling off of scientific progress in understanding state fiscal policy. There is a lot we still do not know about the size of the public sector, state spending and revenue policy, state deficits and surpluses, and the effects of state fiscal policy. We conclude with a discussion of unanswered research questions as a means of building an agenda for future research on state fiscal policy.

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Sources of Public Opinion on Taxes: the Florida Case

Cited by 43 publications

References 0 publications

Confidence, Perception, and Politics in California: The Determinants of Attitudes toward Taxes by Level of Government

Confidence, Perception, and Politics in California: The Determinants of Attitudes toward Taxes by Level of Government

Savings in public services after the crisis: a multilevel analysis of public preferences in the EU-27

Fiscal Policy in the American States

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