As Cryptocurrency Sits in Washington’s Crosshairs, Half of Voters Favor Tighter Guidelines on Digital-Asset Taxes to Fund Infrastructure

Cryptocurrency became an unlikely target under a bipartisan Senate deal to pay the roughly $ 1 trillion infrastructure package. After extensive negotiations, lawmakers surprised the industry by tightening scrutiny of digital assets as a potential payment method for the investments, but more voters appear to be happy with the provision.

The proposal, which aims to tighten disclosure requirements for digital assets and make it easier for the Internal Revenue Service to collect taxes already owed, is supported by 52 percent of voters, according to a new Morning Consult / Politico poll.

The proposal received the highest support from the Democrats with 62 percent, while a majority of 43 percent of the Republicans also approved. A third of GOP voters said they were against the idea, compared to 15 percent of Democrats.

The Republicans in Washington, meanwhile, are divided: Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), The senior member of the Senate Banking Committee, warned in a statement that the language was too broad and could be used to crack down on Bitcoin miners. while Sen Rob Portman (Ohio), who led the Senate Republicans in infrastructure negotiations, claimed that cryptocurrency miners and software developers would not be targeted.

Reusing unused COVID-19 tools, one of the other heavily debated funding methods, was more popular with 63 percent support from all voters and 67 percent from Democrats.

Republicans were far more likely to endorse the use of the unspent COVID funds than to give the IRS more powers to collect taxes on digital assets: 61 percent said they supported the former.

Now that the financing of the infrastructure plan has passed into the broader Senate, the democratic legislators are considering a reconciliation package that can be passed with a simple majority.

President Joe Biden previously urged that measures in his “social infrastructure plan” such as childcare and free community college be included in this bill, although most Republican lawmakers have rejected these ideas.

The poll suggests that some of the key issues that the Democrats will push forward during these talks will be supported by voters, even among Republicans.

While Democratic voters are more likely to support some of the plan’s key provisions for social infrastructure, 52 percent of GOP voters said they strongly or tend to support the inclusion of paid family and sick leave in the bill, and 47 percent said the same for the federal government raised money for affordable childcare.

Four of the key measures studied – toll-free community college and government housing funding were the others – all enjoyed a majority of voters, with family paid medical leave being the most popular at 65 percent.

The survey was conducted from July 31 to August. 2 out of 1,998 registered voters and has an error rate of 2 percentage points.