Compared to a little less than half of everyone else 60 of tea partiers. We asked if it is the responsibility of government to reduce these income differences are not. We see a very huge difference 80 of tea pertiers do not believe it is the partiers do not believe it is the role of government to redistribute wealth. If it is their view that this is a land of equal opportunity regardless of background, and the reasons why they might not also think it is the responsibility of the government to redistribute wealth. This is where we see probably the most striking difference. We asked about those in this country who are poor how good of a chance to they have for escaping poverty . This is a striking difference. 57 of tea partiers think these individuals have a very good chance of escaping poverty compared to only 33 of nontea party supporters. 67 think the poor have very little chance of escaping poverty. This is so striking that i wanted to delve a little deeper into the data and look at different groups. We have republicans that are not tea partiers, Tea Party Republicans and libertarians. Almost everyone republicans, libertarians, democrats, and others do not think the poor have a very good chance of escaping from poverty, but tea partiers think they do. One of the reasons they may feel this way is we asked essentially about the question of zero some su m. Sum. Ken was growing up for everyone or does the wealth of one person mean there is less for everyone lse can wealth grow enough for everyone . The majority thinks that when one person gets wealthy, that necessarily means that someone else has gotten poorer. Most americans agree that hard work is ultimately the most important trade in order to achieve success rather than look for help from other people, but still, you see a difference between tea partiers. I have added in here to party activists. This is an engines poll that david and i conducted back in october 2010 this is an entrance poll. This is margin of error we are talking about. Essentially everybody there thought hard work is what is most important for determining success. However, for nonteaparty supporters, although still the number is overwhelming, there is still a sizable percentage that also think that love and help from other people is ultimately what matters most. That a lot that luck and help from other people is ultimately what matters most. This shows that Tea Party Members have very unique views about upward economic mobility in our country. When i did my interviews with these individuals, a common theme kept coming up all of the same words were being used. I am not sure if someone was using it on a talk show i am not sure what to explain this, but people would say, what im worried about most is losing a thing that makes america great. I would ask what that is, and they would say, america is the place where you can be whatever it is you want to be. They often would caveat this and point out that that is no guarantee of success. A lot of them have started businesses that have failed. But they also said that what it does mean is it is a guarantee of opportunity to try to try to succeed, to try and perhaps fail, and that this ideology i had not really encountered with any of the other groups that i had studied in my own professional research. I just say that this helps explain a lot of their other positions, especially their strong economic conservatism and their fiscal conservatism. If you have a view that things are generally fair, that we work in a meritocracy, that hard work pays off, that Income Redistribution may seem less necessary or even justified. The second point i would like to make today is about medicare. I hear this constantly with my research of the Tea Party Movement. People would often bring up signs that look Something Like this. This was first documented at one of the tea party rallies, where a woman had a sign that said get your government hands off my medicare. This has led to an emerging peace is within the academic world that suggests that the tea party is in fact a lover of the government this has led to an emerging thesis. But only Big Government programs that benefit them and that in a sense it is selfishness. Instead of wanting the Government Programs for all, it is just Big Government programs for them personally, but this did not seem to comport with what i was observing in my interviews with the tea party and also just looking at the polling data itself. We decided to delve a little bit deeper into this issue, to understand how tea partiers perceive and how they conceive of entitlement programs in the United States. We talked about responsibility who is primarily responsible for saving for retirement . 72 of tea partiers thought that individuals should be primarily responsible for saving for retirement, compared to 56 still a majority, but 56 of nonteaparty supporters. We also talked about medicare. Still less, but still a majority thought individuals should be responsible for paying for Health Insurance when they are retired. We asked them about opting out of entitlement programs like Social Security and medicare, and overwhelmingly almost 3 4 of tea partiers think this is fine. Less than half of everyone else agrees. The same is true of medicare. This led me to wonder what explains the polling data out there that shows that tea partiers are unwilling to cut Social Security and medicare in order to balance the budget . Everybody knows that the main drivers of our future budget deficits will be the result of our entitlement programs unless we change them. So why would it not be the movement that says they are against Big Government spending why would they oppose reducing Government Spending for Social Security and medicare . So we decided to ask the question like everybody else asks would you be willing to have your current or future Social Security benefits reduced as part of a plan to balance the federal budget and or ensure Social Security benefits remain in place for future retirees . A majority of tea partiers say no. Compared to 52 of nonteaparty supporters. One thing that struck me was that tea partiers would talk about medicare and Social Security as if it were a savings account. They say this money. If a sacrifice money today, the delay consumption that they could not spend today, but instead saved this in a Government Program in a government savings account, if you will for when they are retired. We asked what they would be willing to accept we asked if they would be willing to accept reductions in the benefits if they were guaranteed to receive at least the amount of money they contributed into the system. You see the responses flipped. Most americans and tea partiers even slightly more so 65 say yes, they would be willing to accept reductions to their own social secure the benefits if they were guaranteed to at least get their money back. We asked the same thing about medicare. If you were to promise they would still get the money that they put in, you see 67 would be open to reforming medicare, even if that meant cuts, as long as they get their money back. We asked this in august 2011 poll. We decided to revisit this last month in our september poll, and we just went straight for it. We asked if they would be willing to accept cuts in current or future medicare benefits if they were guaranteed to receive benefits at least equal to the amount of money that they and their employers contributed into the system, and we find 3 4 our tea partiers say yes of tea partiers say yes. Often, what we were finding in the early polling data where tea partiers were reluctant to cut medicare spending, they were thinking they were reluctant to have their own savings take away, rather than and thinking of it as a redistributive program in which they wanted to ensure they also received those redistributive payments. Ok, in sum, although these two points are somewhat disjointed, i think these are very important points to make and that polling data can help clarify where the tea party stands and how it is different from those who do not identify with the tea party. Mainly that the tea party is very concerned with the board economic mobility, and it continues to be so, which probably explains their strong commitment to fiscal conservatism, and also that they are open to entitlement reform, although we may have previously not thought so. So thank you very much. I think that we will send the time over to questions. [applause] indeed we will. The question and answer session begins now, but let me go over some ground rules when i call on you, please wait until the microphone arrives, and begin to clearly speak into it clearly. We need the microphone for our sound system and also for those watching at home on cspan and online. I would like to remind athome viewers that you can submit questions the atwitter vis yeiyyrt. Via twitter. He always tries to upstage me. My question is probably to four to all four, but it was triggered by the remark that appeared to be defining libertarians as fiscally conservative and economically fiscally liberal. Right. You know what im trying to say. I find that this undermines what libertarians are appearing to me, libertarians are essentially saying, we do not want government coercion. You can have whatever kind of personal beliefs you want. You can be someone who likes to live on a commune, but if you will not force other people to live on a commune, that is libertarian. My point is we are really putting everybody on the same continuum by describing it this way. In other words, libertarians are on the same continue of as conservatives and liberals, which is probably a reason why they are not identified as a Distinctive Group by a lot of people. What do you think about this criticism . I definitely agree with you that libertarians are worried about coercion, but i think the socially liberal part might be hanging you up. The questions that we use to define libertarians as socially liberal are questions like, do you believe the government should promote traditional values or no particular set of values . Libertarians, by our definition, picked no particular set of values. I actually think that is consistent with what you are describing. Socially liberal might be misconstrued as in favor of social programs, but i am talking about more of a tolerance position, that they do not want government messing around with their social space. Those things of economic conservatism and government stay out of my personal life defined libertarians in our data. The gentleman next to him. We do not want to start any arguments here. When you say fiscally responsible, i am bothered because i think theres a difference between the kind of fiscal response ability keep both spending and taxes low and the kind of fiscal responsibility that occurs when you do spend a lot of money but you raise taxes when you say fiscally responsible, i am bothered because i think theres a difference between the kind of fiscal responsibility when you keep taxes and spending low and the kind of fiscal responsibility that occurs when you do spend a lot of money but you raise taxes. To the extent that i am and libertarian, i am very bothered by the idea that it is really responsible to raise spending and then steal money from people in order to pay for it to the extent that i am a libertarian. That is a question for whoever wants to answer it. The real measure of taxation was famously described as the measure the level of spending. I think a lot of tea partiers would agree with your characterization that it is not right to spend today and pass on the taxes. Either you do not get the spending and keep the taxes low or not, and it might be consistent with the moral intuitions about economic mobility that you are seeing. We also see in the data that tea partiers even more than other groups are especially sensitive to the other to the issue of Government Spending because they see it as taxation. Others do not think that deficit spending signals to people that there will be future spending down the line, but tea partiers do see this and are primarily found in part of the Income Distribution that Research Shows they are very sensitive to tax increases because they feel it differently. It is harder for them to pay extra taxes than it is for mr. Buffett, but they are actually paying more they are getting less than they are paying in in terms of redistribution. That is exactly where tea partiers fall, generally speaking, which is one reason why they are so averse to Government Spending. It was the former chairman of the Cato Institute alas, he died recently who did research as other people have done and found others here would certainly dispute this, but i think the evidence conclusively shows that people who want to cut taxes all the time our Big Governments best friend because they are discounting the apparent price of government, and when you put something on sale, people demand more of it. The best way to restrain the size of government is to force a balanced budget, which is to make people pay for it and raise taxes when necessary as a way to restrain spending. The record shows this is what works better in the u. S. However, having put that very contentious idea on the table for all of you to tear to shreds, the reason i bring it up is because i could not find polling data on this, but when i went out and talked to a two party people, i would ask them pointblank what if you could get very large reductions in spending and the price of that was some modest increase in taxes . Would you take that . You would get smaller deficits and Smaller Government as a result, and they all said no. They were more allergic to raising taxes than they were to having the government grow, which i thought was surprising. You saw that same dynamic, by the way, in the republican primary debate. I think that is a great point. I have not seen polling data, but in my interviews, this also came up. What was shown was that actually would favor some sort of compromise if it were guaranteed that the spending decreases would actually go into effect, and that is typically the reluctance to any kind of tax increase at all that typically the reluctance to any kind of tax increase at all was that experience shows them that when tax increases go into effect, strange accounting tricks happen and they do not actually seemed to materialize, the spending increases. Interesting thing, if you were able to pose the question where it was credible that you credibly, actually cut spending whether or not tea partiers would then favor tax increases, i think it would be somewhat mixed. The gentleman on the third row from the front here. Right here. Wait for the microphone, please. Hi, i think this is a question to all of you. I had a question because i know a lot of friends i will not speak to my own beliefs, but i have a lot of friends who really jump on the ron paul revolution bandwagon, jump on largely because jumped on largely because of the Civil Liberties and antiwar rhetoric than the taxation issues because at our age, we aringe taxed either way. I wonder if that has a largein a libertarian is and what that goes into a large input in your definition of what a libertarian is. To answer your question, we have not used issue questions like the patriot acts to define libertarians like the patriot act to defy libertarians. The sort of moral background questions are probably more influential in the way people think and knowledge of the issues. A lot of people do not know much about the issues, so it can be confusing if you use those issues. If you use backgroundthe questions, you will find libertarians do care more about Civil Liberties than conservatives i use backgroundbelieve if you use backgroundbelief questions. It was surprising how many tea partiers were much more willing to accept the closing of Guantanamo Bay than conservatives. It is sort of surprising. The gentleman right here, the one inside, second from the left. We will get to the other person. Probably mostly for emily, but i would be happy to hear anyones observations. When i did it with my friends about regulation, they often talk using a mental model that if this time we elect the right people and i of this time the regulators do it right, we will come up with something good if this time the regulators to it right. It seems they are using an aspirational model to frame their thinking. I wondered if you got answers like that in a lot of your questions. Do you think that they think literally that people can escape poverty and that statistically, someone is likely to move up in United States, or are they being aspirational when they answer those questions . What is the kind of thinking that you are seeing . I am really glad you asked this question because it gives me an opportunity to clarify. When we talk about opportunity, who does not like the word opportunity and what politician does not want and advocate for opportunity . How opportunities operation allies is different for different people how opportunity is operationalized. If we think about everyone starting on the same platform, somewhat equalized access to health care and education, meeting we start in roughly the same place so that we have an equal chance, equal opportunity to succeed. It is not about equal results, just about starting equally, but tea partiers are not talking about that platform. If you were to imagine a ladder, they are thinking about the ladder of upward economic mobility. It is not about where you start, it is about what that latter is like for every person what that ladder is like. They want it to be equal for all people. It means equality before the law, people are treated equally, and typically, equalizing the platform where you begin, and keeping that equal latter for everyone, they do not tend to go well together keeping that equal ladder for everyone. Tea partiers would carry a lot about how that ladder works for people. Most of them would not think that someone in povert