Undeserving rich or untrustworthy government? How elite rhetoric erodes support for soaking the rich

Why did Washington State citizens vote down a 2010 ballot measure that would have increased taxes on the rich? This outcome appears to contradict consistent survey findings that majorities of the public support increases in taxes on the rich, including those from Washington State polls early in the campaign, before support for the measure plummeted. We investigate the fate of the Washington ballot measure in order to shed light on the broader question of under what conditions the American public supports government efforts to combat rising economic inequality. We do so through a brief case study of the campaign, combined with an original survey experiment in which we isolate the effects of a particular framing strategy focusing on a unique feature of the measure: it would create a new state income tax. The findings indicate that this frame was successful in depressing public support for the measure, possibly because the frame tapped into distrust in government while deactivating negative attitudes about rich people. In the concluding section, we place these findings in context of the mixed results of other recent state-level ballot measures attempting to raise taxes on the rich, and identify implications for future efforts to redistribute wealth downward.