Er, given the order of the options, I think you mean 13%-84%

The answer is fairly simple:  People who have the money which will be redistributed don't particularly like it.  

The people who will receive the money being redistributed to them from someone else, think it's a great idea.

Being as a small double digit percentage of taxpayers pay the large double digit bulk of all taxes, your 84% for, 13% against figure sounds about right.

I wonder what the results would have been if they'd included the option of reinstituting slavery?  

Chan, it was 84-13 the other way (i.e. 84% picked option 2).

I can't recall ever seeing a question that bad from a professional pollster.  Normally they at least try to be careful about how they word questions.  If the point was to see whether people favor or oppose redistribution of wealth, it would have been better to just ask directly (e.g. "Should the government take steps to distribute wealth more evenly among Americans?").

Moi, I think a fairer tax system and better planned national investment strategies to ensure some legitimate redistribution -- as being rich doesn't mean you have no wider community responsibilities, and poverty is not always a matter of individual inadequacy -- are not such bad ideas.  We also need to develop, however, a much more coherent economic framework (historical example:  the New Deal) for the future that deals with the key problems (education, health, communication technology, transport, immigration etc) that are gradually thinning out our global competitiveness.

But then, what do I know?

An economist named Hauser proved in 1993 that no matter what the tax rates have been, in postwar America tax revenues have remained at about 19.5% of GDP. His findings imply that there are draconian constraints on the ability of tax-rate increases to generate fresh revenues.

Presidential candidates, instead of disputing how much more tax to impose on whom, would be better advised to come up with plans for increasing GDP while ridding the tax system of its wearying complexity. That would be a formula for success. (Full disclosure I have plagiarized parts of a WSJ article of 5/20/08 and the words preceding are lifted totally therefrom).

What liz said. To which I'd add, the key goals of the tax code (in addition to core objectives like simplicity and fewer incentives for gaming/sheltering) should be to encourage savings and to _reduce the borudens on those who courageously bear, and seek to raise appropriately, CHILDREN. Slash taxes for families with school age children Raise taxes for childless young yuppies and people whose income is tilted toward capital gains, including capital gains that our corrupt pols, in sublime deference to their paymasters in the hedge fund industry. deem income under the tax code.

Help the puppies etc

Wealth redistribution is a terrific idea. The truly wealthy neither need nor deserve all that money; it should flow to the less fortunate, defined as people who make as much money as I do, or less.

I suggest using a weighted system whereby those who deserve the redistributed wealth the most get the lion's share of it. I define the most deserving as those who have shown the greatest productivity under the existing system--i.e., those who make the same amount of money as I do, working our way down from there.

My only concern is that all this wealth would be redistributed by our federal, state, or local governments. Our governments have proven themselves to be eminently competent, efficient, trustworthy, and honest, with a very few exceptions (e.g., the White House, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the U.S. Postal Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, the Food and Drug Administration, the Departments of Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Treasury, Labor, Veterans Affairs, State, Commerce, Interior et al.; county building inspectors, municipal courts, sheriff's departments, Highway Patrol, Department of Elections, state legislatures, the Internal Revenue Service, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, mayors' offices, county boards of supervisors, city councils, school boards, parking and traffic departments, the DMV, etc. etc. etc. etc.). However, for some reason, in spite of government's general high level of service, I have a bad feeling about thems being the ones doing the aforementioned redistributing.

So, yeah, of course, I should be getting a nice permanent infusion of lean green, that's something we can all agree on. But as to who's overseeing the infusion, well, that remains to be seen.

I knew I knew nothing.

The option of restoring wage slavery has been very effectively instituted for several years now. To paraphrase it goes - don't enslave you, don't enslave me, enslave that fellow behind the tree - or at least be sure he doesn't make more than $8.00 per hour with no benefits - give him plenty of bootstrap motivation.

What loaded questions.  I'd love to know the political affiliation of whomever at Gallup came up with them.

Other Gallup questions:

1.  Which of the following two approaches to the economy do you think should guide government policy: socialism or capitalism?

2.  Would your opinion of Barack Obama become more favorable, less favorable, or stay the same if you learned that he was a communist?

3.  Which of the following two approaches to the economy do you favor: improving the economy overall, or diverting the income of hard-working, successful Americans to social programs designed to help those who are unwilling to work and who would probably use that money to buy drugs?

4.  Which of the following statements best describes your opinion:  (a) People who work hard and have good ideas should be rewarded for the effort in a free market.  (b) The government should distrubute the nation's wealth according to what the government thinks is fair.

5.  Which of the following statements best describes your opinion:  (a) Puppy dogs are cute.  (b) The government should distribute the nation's wealth according to what the government thinks is fair.

6.  Which of the following descriptions would you say best applies to you:  (a) Drunken flag-burning pedophile.  (b) Potential supporter of John McCain's fair and reasonable economic proposals.

They are fair choices between socialist and Keynesian options.

Notice that they completely ignore the option "the government should do nothing at all" but that would be to confusing for the audience. It is better for the unwashed masses to think the only thing that can be done is some form of government intervention.