The COVID-19 public health pandemic has seen governments spend trillions of dollars to limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus as well as to soften the economic blow from the shutting down of national economies. Subsequent budget shortfalls raise the question of how governments will pay for the direct and indirect costs associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, we study the public's willingness to contribute through paying a new tax, with a focus on Canada. We find that both generalized social and political trust are associated with a greater willingness to support a COVID-related tax and that generalized social trust, in particular, attenuates the negative effect of an experimentally manipulated, specified level of tax burden on policy support. These findings entail important implications for the public opinion and tax policies literature, as well as for policy makers.
Related articles: Gainous, Jason, Stephen C. Craig, and Michael D. Martinez. 2008. "Social Welfare Attitudes and Ambivalence about the Role of Government." Politics & Policy 36 (6): 972-1004. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2008.00147 Shock, David R. 2013. "The Significance of Opposition Entrepreneurs on Local Sales Tax Referendum Outcomes." Politics & Policy 41 (4): 588-614. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12028 Wagle, Udaya R. 2013. "The Heterogeneity Politics of the Welfare State: Changing Population Heterogeneity and Welfare State Policies in High-Income OECD Countries, 1980-2005." Politics & Policy 41 (6): 947-984. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12053.
La pandemia de salud pública COVID‐19 hizo que los gobiernos gastaran billones de dólares para limitar la propagación del virus COVID‐19, así como para suavizar el golpe económico del cierre de las economías nacionales. Los posteriores déficits presupuestarios plantean la cuestión de cómo pagarán los gobiernos los costos directos e indirectos asociados con la pandemia de COVID‐19. En este documento, estudiamos la disposición del público a contribuir mediante el pago de un nuevo impuesto. Encontramos que tanto la confianza social como política generalizada se asocian con una mayor disposición a apoyar un impuesto relacionado con COVID y que la confianza social generalizada en particular atenúa el efecto negativo de un nivel especificado de carga tributaria manipulado experimentalmente sobre el apoyo a las políticas. Estos hallazgos tienen implicaciones importantes para la opinión pública y la literatura sobre políticas fiscales, y también para los responsables de la formulación de políticas.
新冠肺炎（COVID‐19）公共卫生大流行期间，政府花费数万亿美元用于限制新冠病毒传播，并缓冲因国家经济停摆而产生的经济冲击。随后的预算短缺引起一个疑问，即政府将如何支付与新冠肺炎大流行相关的直接成本和间接成本。本文中，我们研究了关于通过支付新税来填补成本的公众意愿。我们发现，普遍社会信任和政治信任都与支持新冠肺炎相关税的更强意愿相关，并且普遍社会信任尤其能削弱由实验操作的、特定程度的税负对政策支持产生的消极效果。这些研究发现为舆论和税政策文献以及决策者提供了重要意义。.
Keywords: Budget Deficits; COVID‐19 Legacies; Canada; Crisis Response; Decision Making; Economic Policy; Economic Recovery; Generalized Social Trust; Health Policy; Novel Coronavirus; Pandemic; Political Trust; Public Health; Recession; Risk; Tax Policy; Taxation Support; Willingness to Pay.
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