Open Thread: Americans Still Rejecting Class Warfare

June 3rd, 2011 9:42 AM

Via Ed Morrissey, Gallup has released a new poll showing that a narrow plurality of Americans reject income redistribution via high taxes on "the rich." In light of today's miserable jobs report, Morrissey notes, the numbers at first seem counterintuitive. But a closer look reveals the opposite. Check below the break for more.

Here's how Ed explains Americans' continuing skepticism of "soak the rich" class warfare:

Redistributionist policies will always appeal to those who see themselves as outsiders to economic success. One might expect that the terrible economy of the last three years would have boosted the popularity of Barack Obama’s populist agenda, but it seems the opposite has occurred. Americans know that job creation comes from private investors taking risks with their wealth in order to create even more wealth, and not from government confiscation of wealth to create new bureaucracies that create nothing but red tape. We have spent the last two years watching what happens when government takes wealth out of the economy, and the results — chronically high unemployment, bad housing markets, and a falling dollar that brings high fuel and food prices — are no longer dim reminders of the 1970s, but our current environment.

Is that analysis on point, you think? What are your thoughts on the poll?