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This paper examines attitudes toward taxes on the rich and middle class in the United States with emphasis on the impacts of political ideology and party identification. Using the 2016 General Social Survey, we estimate bivariate ordered probit models for a full cross-sectional sample, and subsamples stratified by party. Results suggest that proposals to reduce income and wealth inequalities and/or fund large federal expenditure increases by raising taxes on the rich will have difficulty in gaining the political traction necessary for success. Any proposal to raise taxes on both the rich and middle class has almost no chance of passage. Findings also indicate that party affiliation moderates ideological impacts on opinions of taxes on the rich and middle class, in some cases substantially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests whether effects of individual characteristics on redistributive preferences are constant across ideological subgroups. Using data from the U.S. General Social Surveys, we estimate ordered probit models for a full pooled sample, and liberal, moderate, and conservative subsamples. Wide cleavages in redistributive attitudes between liberals and conservatives, and between Democrats and Republicans are observed. Substantial gaps between Democrats and Republicans persist within ideological subgroups. Attitudinal differences across social classes exist for conservatives and moderates, but not liberals. Among moderates and conservatives, blacks are more likely than whites to support government redistribution. No black-white gap is observed among liberals. Though conservative women are more likely than conservative men to support major government involvement in redistribution, no gender gap emerges for liberals or moderates. Full sample results suggest that education has no discernible impact on redistributive attitudes, but subsample results strongly suggest that a college degree reinforces ideological effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the effects of political ideology and party affiliation on support for more government spending on environmental protection. Pooled‐sample results show that Liberals (Democrats) are more likely to support higher government spending on environmental protection than Moderates (Independents), who, in turn, are more likely to support higher spending levels than Conservatives (Republicans). The results persist even when we control for respondents' opinions concerning whether the federal government, in general, does too little or too much. When stratifying by party, ideological divisions generally narrow, while stratifying by ideology leads to slightly wider divisions between Democrats and Republicans. Together, these results suggest that when Liberals and Conservatives form opinions about government spending on the environment, party affiliation, to some degree, dampens the effects of ideology. Between 2014 and 2018 the probability of supporting more environmental spending increased, albeit slightly, for all ideologies and parties, but more so for Liberals and Democrats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]