America’s richest citizens want to keep their money, and not have it siphoned off by higher taxes. The sentiment is logical enough. Most people, rich or poor, want to control their own finances. But the anti-tax attitude of the well-off shows the extent to which a class divide is at the center of the debate on federal taxes.

A new Gallup poll shows that:

About six in 10 Americans believe that money and wealth should be more evenly distributed among a larger percentage of the people in the U.S., while one-third think the current distribution is fair. Although Americans’ attitudes on this topic have fluctuated somewhat over time, the current sentiment is virtually the same as when Gallup first asked this question in 1984. Slightly fewer have favored a more even distribution since October 2008.

Since the wealth distribution in the United States places most money with the top 1%, the results could well have shown a greater demand for wealth distribution, but that is too subtle a detail to matter.

If the Republican party is the party of the wealthy and those who favor the wealthy, the Gallup research demonstrates that the rich will battle to keep their riches:

Wealth distribution is a key polarizing issue in contemporary U.S. politics. Partisan reactions to this question reflect that polarization, with more than eight in 10 Democrats saying money and wealth need to be more evenly distributed, compared with 28% of Republicans.

As the public debates about how wealth should be redistributed, the easiest mechanism is taxes. Gallup’s study further tells:

A separate question focuses more directly on these issues, finding that 52% of Americans think the government should redistribute wealth “by heavy taxes on the rich,” while 45% say it should not.

The spread between the two attitudes is smaller than many people would expect, based on the fact that the wealthy are such a small part of the population. The rich obviously have allies in the middle class.

At this point, the battle in Congress over whether the rich will be held more accountable to fund the government is gridlocked and may never come to a final vote. It is another example that the wishes of voters are not always reflected in legislation, or perhaps that the rich have a finger on the scales of how Congressmen vote.

Methodology: Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted April 4 to 7, 2013, with a random sample of 1,005 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

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