House Speaker Nancy Pelosi floated the idea of a national sales tax in a recent television interview, but a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 67% oppose a national sales tax on all goods and services.

Twenty percent (20%) favor such a tax, while 13% are undecided.

These findings mirror those in May when 18% favored a national sales tax but 68% were opposed.

Support for a national sales tax grows when voters are given specific things on which the revenue would be spent.

Thirty-eight percent (38%) support a national sales tax to help pay for health care for all Americans. But most voters (55%) are still opposed. In May, 40% favored and 49% opposed a national sales tax if the revenue was used to help provide universal health care.

If the money raised from the tax is used to reduce the federal deficit, 39% are in favor, with 48% opposed. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure.

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Of the priorities outlined by President Obama earlier this year, Democrats see health care reform as the most important. Republicans and voters not affiliated with either party put the emphasis on deficit reduction.

Democrats and unaffiliated voters are slightly more supportive of a national sales tax than Republicans, but solid majorities of all three groups are opposed.

When the proposal is to use the tax monies to provide health care for all Americans, there is a noticeable partisan shift. Sixty-one percent (61%) of Democrats support a national sales tax used for that purpose. Seventy-three percent (73%) of Republicans and 63% of unaffiliateds are still opposed.

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of all voters, however, favor putting a provision in the health care reform plan that would prohibit any new taxes, fees or penalties on families who make less than $250,000 a year.

If the money raised from a national sales tax is used to reduce the federal deficit, Democrats are evenly divided, and opposition by Republicans and unaffiliated voters drops to 52% and 50% respectively.

What Pelosi specifically put on the table for discussion is a value-added tax. But as New York Times economic columnist David Leonhardt wrote this week, “A value-added tax — or VAT — is essentially a national sales tax. It has the advantage of taxing consumption rather than income, which should encourage savings. Savings, in turn, leads to corporate investment, and investment leads to economic growth. As taxes go, the VAT has much to recommend it.”

Fifty-seven percent (57%) of voters have an unfavorable opinion of Pelosi, but that’s down seven points from late August when she hit an all-time high in terms of unpopularity. This puts Pelosi’s unfavorables back to where they were in February.

Only 10% of voters now expect their taxes to go down during the Obama presidency. Forty-seven percent (45%) say their taxes will go up, and 32% think they will stay the same.

Sixty percent (60%) of voters say tax increases hurt the economy, a fairly consistent finding for over a decade. Fifty-five percent (55%) say tax cuts help the economy.

Some in Congress are considering a second stimulus plan to fight the country’s growing unemployment problem, but 62% of voters oppose the passage of another economic stimulus package this year.

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