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The Myth of the Rational Voter

Via Infrastructurist:

The survey was done from June 30 through July 2, 2009, and involved 800 adults, with a +3.46% margin of error. And a whopping 60% of the respondents — Republican and Democrat alike — believe the federal gas tax is raised annually. Geographic location didn’t make much of a difference — 61% believed this incorrect statement in the Northeast, 58% in the South, 54% in the Midwest, and 67% in the West.

It was, of course, last raised in 1993.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 9:46 am and is filed under Etc.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “The Myth of the Rational Voter”

  1. Yokota Fritz Says:
    January 26th, 2010 at 10:12 am

    Can we read anything into what appears to be more awareness in what’s commonly regarded as “flyover territory” of the South and Midwest?

  2. Rob Says:
    January 26th, 2010 at 10:19 am

    I’m really not surprised. Gasoline prices have been increasing, auto boosters like to claim that taxes are a big chunk of the cost of a gallon, so anyone uninterested in doing their own investigation into this question probably just makes the jump to what you’ve posted.

  3. Rasmus Jensen Says:
    January 26th, 2010 at 3:55 pm

    Just send all the gas tax raising believers on re-education in Europe about the gas taxes :)

    That way they will find out that there are not that much tax on gas in the States :)

  4. John Says:
    January 27th, 2010 at 5:57 am

    I think this speaks more to the average person not being in on the minutia of knowing whether the gas tax raises yearly, and guessing. Uninformed, maybe, but I wouldn’t suggest irrational.

  5. townmouse Says:
    January 27th, 2010 at 6:06 am

    It certainly suggests politicians might as well go ahead and raise them annually, as half the electorate won’t notice!

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Traffic Tom Vanderbilt

How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.

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