The paper reports on an attempt to survey a random sample of 2001 respondents in Michigan in 1978 to see why they voted for or against various tax limitation proposals. The results of the survey are that respondents in general do not favor large cuts in public expenditures and taxes—indeed, the median respondent desires no change in the overall level of government spending. Measures to predict the tax limitation vote of respondents based on those preferences were only partly successful—it was found necessary to combine preferences with information about perceptions of the likely impact of the amendments to explain the votes adequately.