"Taxes At Lowest Level In 60 Years... but as many as 34% of Americans think Obama raised taxes

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... More than three quarters of Americans, according to a CBS News/ New York Times poll released that same month, thought the Obama administration has either kept taxes the same for most Americans or increased them. The latest CBS News/ New York Times poll released yesterday shows that as many as 34 percent of Americans think Mr. Obama raised taxes.

Today (4/15/10), thousands of Tea Partiers will descend on Washington to declare they've been "Taxed Enough Already." Yesterday's poll found that 64 percent of Tea Party supporters think the administration has raised taxes -- a finding that might leave Democrats banging their heads against their desks.


"The American people need to be reminded that 98 percent of Americans got a tax cut last year," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday.

Reid was referring to the impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, otherwise known as the stimulus -- , the only Obama policy to really impact people's 2009 tax returns. In fact, tax refunds reached an all-time high this year in part because of the stimulus, the president said in his weekly address on Saturday. Meanwhile, taxes are at their lowest levels in 60 years, according to William Gale, co-director of the Tax Policy Center and director of the Retirement Security Project at the Brookings Institution.


"The relation between what is said in the tax debate and what is true about tax policy is often quite tenuous," Gale told Hotsheet. "The rise of the Tea Party at at time when taxes are literally at their lowest in decades is really hard to understand."


Skepticism surrounding the president's tax policies likely stem from a variety of factors: First, it's simply harder to open one's wallet for the government during a recession, and some state and local tax increases added to some people's burden. Additionally, many Americans may be more concerned with potential tax increases in the future. On top of all that, it can simply be hard to have a firm understanding of what's going on in Washington from the hyper-partisan rhetoric often used to talk about taxes.


Here's a look at what the president did for your tax return in 2009, what he may do in the future and whether it all adds up...

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One third of the Recovery Act was made up of tax credits, the White House emphasizes...

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