Framing Is Massively Overrated

One of the just-so stories told by people who emphasize the importance of Game-Changing the Overton Window on Steroids is the estate tax — allegedly, Republicans made a popular tax unpopular by branding it the “death tax.” The problem is that there’s no evidence to support the claim:

What about the estate tax? It seems like a case where framing effects are unusually likely. In the early 2000s, opponents started labeling this tax on inherited wealth the “death tax.” They claimed it was unjust double taxation because the money had (they claimed) already been taxed when it was income. Some people came up with even cleverer slogans like “no taxation without respiration.” Supporters never seemed as good at disseminating pro-estate tax frames.

But even on this issue, the evidence suggests framing wasn’t very important. The 2002 American National Election Study included an experiment where people were randomly assigned to be asked about the “death tax” or the “estate tax” and found no significant difference in opinions. It was broadly unpopular with both wordings. Question wording experiments in polls by a variety of other organizations found similar

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null results.

When Larry Bartels looked at the history of estate tax (see chapter 7), he found no evidence it was popular at any time since its adoption in 1916. Republicans have tried to repeal it whenever they had unified control of government, and in each instance they felt they had popular sentiment behind them. This started in the mid-1920s, when President Calvin Coolidge urged repeal. At that time, the estate tax was cut, and members of Congress perceived strong public pressure for complete repeal. Repeal was averted, not because the votes weren’t there in Congress, but only because the House Ways and Means Committee chairman took it out of the bill in conference committee. After that, it was safe from repeal for many decades because from 1932 to 2001, Republicans only held unified government control for a small two year window in 1953-5, when they held a slim 1-vote majority in the Senate and a 10-seat majority in the House. When Republicans took the House in 1994, many in the party immediately pushed for repeal. And when they achieved unified control in 2001, they passed it.

And this is true of conservative policy successes in general. Reagan didn’t make upper-class tax cuts more popular; he (and George W. Bush) were just smart enough to understand that since federal elections aren’t referenda on individual policies it doesn’t necessarily matter. Framing can sometimes matter at the margins but people tend to vastly overstate its importance.