There's a widely-held assumption in Republican politics about fiscal issues: Americans love spending cuts. It's why GOP officials have rallied so enthusiastically behind Paul Ryan's budget plan, and why Republicans claim to be fiscally responsible with a straight face.
Pew Research Center
But the public's appetite for slashing public investments may not be as strong as the GOP would like. Indeed, it's apparently not even close.
Suzy Khimm flagged an interesting report from the Pew Research Center that found a strong majority of Americans consider deficit reduction "a top priority," but most of the public rejects the GOP solution -- massive spending cuts -- as the way to go.
As Pew Research Center president Andrew Kohut noted, more Americans actually support increasing spending on key domestic priorities
The results like a sharp repudiation of everything Republicans believe in the 21st century -- Americans want more money for education, health care, aid to the poor, Social Security, law enforcement, and infrastructure, while the GOP wants the exact opposite.
The only spending that's really unpopular is foreign aid, which is a perennial trend, and which represents a tiny fraction of the federal budget. As Travis Waldron explained, "Of course, cutting aid to the world's needy would do virtually nothing to reduce the deficit. Though Americans think it represents anywhere from 10 percent to one-third of the federal budget, in reality, it makes up less than one percent of federal spending."
In terms of the larger fiscal debate, it obviously matters that the American mainstream supports deficit reduction in theory, but is not at all comfortable with cuts to cherished domestic priorities.
But in terms of the political considerations, Republicans are gambling that American voters are so fearful of the debt and deficit, they're prepared to endorse sharp reductions in everything from education to health care to entitlements. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
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Pew Research sounds all sciencey and therefore not something that the GOP want anyone to believe. They much prefer straw polls where the evidence can be manipulated by their organization.
You see this is why the right thinks We the People should not be allowed to vote and why they proudly proclaim America is a "republic" not a democracy. Of course we are a representative republic which means we elect politicians to represent us and our views not to ignore us and dictate their views upon us.
That's interesting but I don't think it matters. If people are frustrated about the economy, they'll vote for the other guy. I think the only hope is to convince people that the Ryan budget is an austerity plan, and that it won't help the economy.
I disagree with the last paragraph. People aren't fearful of the debt. They're mad that the economy isn't doing better.
People believe that reducing the deficit is a top priority because the politicians and the press continuously tell them that it's a priority. In order to believe that reducing the deficit is not a top priority you'd have to conclude that every politician from Obama to Ryan and every media outlet from the New York Times and NPR to Fox and the WSJ is wrong.
But actually, people don't care about the deficit and are unwilling to sacrifice anything to reduce it. And why should they? There's no coherent argument at all that reducing the deficit would improve people's lives in any respect.
Americans apparently think this country gives great piles of loot to needy people in other countries. (That's untrue, of course -- in fact, the U.S. is fairly stingy when it comes to helping poor people elsewhere.)
But I have to wonder about the morality of Americans that they -- we -- so hate poor people elsewhere. When did we get to be so mean?
The date on the poll is particularly significant because it is from early February 2011 -- during the supposed height of the TP madness, after the legislatures and governors were elected, and before people actually began feeling the pinch. Of course, on education, it's also before a year of Republican teacher bashing, which might have lowered the top two votes. I really wish there were a newer poll that could show how these numbers have changed.
As for K in VA's question, the funny thing is that Americans always answer like that in the abstract, but usually do line up first to help victims of a specific emergency.
Truth is most people voting for the GOP are insecure and brain dead - how else to understand that they vote against their own best economic interests! They have neither an understanding of the issues, nor do they wish too. They want the "sound-bite" answers because they sound simple, uncomplicated and easy.
http://www.moyak.com/papers/foreign-aid-overseas.html and ..
By nearly all measures, the amount of foreign aid provided by the United States
declined for several decades but has grown in the past few years. After hitting an alltime
low in the mid1990s, total foreign assistance (but excluding Iraq reconstruction)
for FY2003/2004, in real terms, has been larger than any two-year period since the
mid-1980s. The 0.2% of U.S. gross national product represented by foreign aid
obligations the past two years, however, is among the smallest amounts in the last
half-century. The United States is the largest international economic aid donor in
dollar terms but is the smallest contributor among the major donor governments
when calculated as a percent of gross national income.
from:http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/31987.pdf
Considering that the Wingnut Right is about 22-27% of the population, these figures are not surprising. Which is why GOTV is so important. These people vote all the time. Let the overall percentage fall below 50% of registered voters, and all of a sudden their actual 24% is 51% of the vote.
So essentially this poll means that overall, We The People think the spending levels are about right or could be higher - meaning we have elected officials that over time gave the majority of us what we think we want.
What these numbers don't show is whether an individual always polls in the green, or always in the yellow or always in the red. I personally would poll in green on Public Education and in the yellow or even red on Military Defense.
This shows what we all know - It is easy to spend on things that people can see will benefit them (a reason foreign aid is less popular) and it is much harder to decide how to pay for it or not spend as much.
Like - Short Term Stimulus (easy) followed by Long Term deficit reduction (hard).
Whether / where / how much / when to cut is of course one of the BIG QUESTIONS.
[I've been known to yell at the TV (and scare the cat) when someone suggests we cut Public Education but increase Military Defense.]
The other BIG QUESTION is how we pay for the spending we want.
We MUST have very serious discussions about these questions. We need everyone working together to find the best BALANCE. You know - "Fair and Balanced".
Even more relevant than a majority of Americans wanting an increase in spending, is the number who want spending to stay the same OR be increased. Those percentages according to this survey are supermajorities except for four of the five listed last: AG/Military Defense/Unemployment Aid/Foreign Aid; AG, Mil Def, and Unemployment Aid are in a dead heat - AG: 72/71; MD: 66/67; UA: 69/68. 74% to 50% think Foreign Aid should either stay the same or be cut. When you look at the other areas though, 71-91% think spending should stay the same or be increased in the other 14 areas listed. That really takes away the Republicans' claims that Americans want spending cuts in the budget. Someone needs to update the study with the same or larger size sample and see if the results are the same. The newspaper ads, billboards, and radio and tv ads should be placed across the country - along with ads that give specific numbers of jobs created by the Recovery Act in every region of the country. Others could show how many jobs would be brought to each region of the nation if Congress would pass the Jobs Act and the Transportation Bill - that would be about 60,000 per state! Just think if the Chamber of Commerce and Banks across the country made a commitment to MATCH government spending with hiring and loans to businesses to start, expand, or return to the country, how many more people could get a job that paid a living wage. Katrina asked a similar question about where private/public partnerships have gone on THIS WEEK and no one on the panel could give a response. The Chamber of Commerce and the Banks and the Corporations that have a treasure they refuse to spend should be asked, "where are the jobs?"