Poll: Economy a top concern, taxes last

As debate over whether to extend tax cuts for those in the upper
brackets rages on Capitol Hill, the economy leads concerns and the issue
of taxes ranked last on the list of those asked for a recent poll. 

Only
4 percent of those asked said taxes are the most important issue to
them personally, the lowest percentage of any issue, in a recent CNBC
poll. The top issue was the economy and jobs, with 42 percent saying
that is the most important issue, followed by the deficit (14 percent)
and healthcare (13 percent). The other issues were education (9
percent), Iraq and Afghanistan (6 percent), Social Security (5 percent)
and immigration (5 percent).

The CNBC story reported that
a majority of the respondents believe the Bush tax cuts should be
extended, even for families making more than $250,000 a year — with 55
percent saying that increasing taxes on any Americans would slow the
economy and kill jobs. It also reportedly showed that 40 percent believe
those tax cuts should be canceled for higher-income Americans.

But
CNBC didn’t include any poll results or graphs supporting their
headline that a majority — 55 percent — of those polled support an
extension of the Bush-era cuts for all taxpayers.   

See the
complete results of the poll here. 

Senate
Republicans sent out the poll information showing support for their
position that tax cuts should be extended for all taxpayers for the next
year. 

Overall, 62 percent say the country is on the wrong track,
up from 57 percent in September 2009 but still well below two years ago
as the financial crisis hit and 82 percent said the country was headed
the wrong way.

A majority said they are very worried about economic conditions, while 35 percent say they are somewhat worried. 

About 65 percent of those asked said they need to see hiring go up and unemployment go down to feel better about the nation’s slowly moving economic recovery. 

When it comes to dealing with the economy, respondents weren’t happy with either Republicans or Democrats, but 69 percent said the GOP don’t have a viable economic plan, while 65 percent said the same about the majority party.