President Obama and Democrats in Congress cut taxes for every working family, putting more money in the pockets of Americans who need it most. A typical family has saved $3,600 during his first term. Now he's fighting to stop middle class families and those aspiring to join the middle class from seeing their taxes go up and to extend key tax relief for working families and those paying for college, while asking the wealthiest and corporations to pay their fair share. That is why we will always vigorously oppose the type of tax reform supported by Mitt Romney, which independent experts have found would require raising taxes on typical families with children by at least $2,000 if it were paid for. At the same time, Mitt Romney's plan would cut taxes for those making over $3 million by an average of $250,000 and would create incentives that will lead to hundreds of thousands of jobs going overseas at the expense of American workers.

Older people with some accumulated equity can find an economic downturn very menacing because governments at all levels spend more on programs to help working-age families. Will governments respond by hiking levies on the more economically comfortable? Many Tea Party people are acutely worried that the answer will be yes. [One participant] reports a strong fear among Tea Partiers that they may be asked to pay higher taxes in the future, a result consistent with our fieldwork experience.

Tea Partiers' dread of tax hikes even surpasses the usual level at which Republicans worry about and oppose tax increases. 80% of Tea Partiers oppose raising taxes on Americans making more than $250,000 a year, a number that far exceeds the 56% of non- Tea Party Republicans who are opposed to such levies. Even compared to fellow conservatives, Tea Partiers are especially worried about the political response to the economic downturn--which helps explain why the Tea Party outburst happened when it did.