Utahns aren’t buying congressional Republicans’ promise to tackle tax reform this year, a UtahPolicy.com poll shows.
The Dan Jones & Associates survey finds that 60 percent of Utah adults are “not very confident” or “not at all confident” that the U.S. House and Senate GOP majorities will pass “meaningful” tax reform in 2017.
Only 36 percent of Utahns believe Congress will do so, and 3 percent don’t know.
The poll was taken before the U.S. Senate stagnated on passing a “skinny” version of Obamacare repeal – just the latest in GOP failures in keeping promises made last year by Republican congressional leaders and GOP President Donald Trump.
The battle over Obamacare seems, as of last week, stalled.
And while GOP leaders promise to move on to tax reform now, it is unclear if they have the votes in the U.S. House and Senate to tackle major reforms.
Jones finds that Republicans and those who self-identified as “very conservative” politically are the only demographic groups who believe congressional Republicans can still pass meaningful tax reform:
— Among Republicans, 55 percent said such reforms can pass this year, 39 percent disagree.
— Among Democrats, 95 percent said tax reform will not pass this year, only 4 percent believe it will.
— And among political independents, 72 percent said tax reform won’t pass, 26 percent believe it will.
— For those who said they are “very conservative:” 64 percent said tax reform will pass, 32 percent said it would not.
— Those who said they are “somewhat conservative:” 54 percent said such reforms won’t pass, 41 percent believe they will.
— Moderates and those who are “somewhat” and “very liberal” have no confidence tax reform will pass – by large majorities they doubt it.
So, overall, Utahns clearly have lost confidence in the GOP-controlled Congress doing much of anything this year in major reforms in the U.S. government.
In the recent weeks, GOP congressional leaders are clearly becoming concerned about the lack of promised actions, especially in light of the upcoming 2018 U.S. Senate and House mid-term elections.
Historically speaking, the party that holds the White House sees losses in Congress at the first mid-term election.
However, many of the GOP Senate seats up next year are in heavily Republican states.
And it is still unclear if Democrats have a real shot at gaining enough House seats to win a majority in that 435-member body. They need to gain 24 seats to do so.
Jones polled 607 adults from May 31 to June 5. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.98 percent.
