Americans Oppose Cuts in Education, Social Security, Defense
Large plurality call for Congress to agree on deficit reduction before raising debt limitby Frank Newport and Lydia Saad
Galllup
PRINCETON, NJ -- Prior to the State of the Union address, a majority of Americans said they favor cutting U.S. foreign aid, but more than 6 in 10 opposed cuts to education, Social Security, and Medicare. Smaller majorities objected to cutting programs for the poor, national defense, homeland security, aid to farmers, and funding for the arts and sciences.
In the weeks ahead, Congress and the White House will likely focus on negotiations over government spending and how to cut the federal budget deficit. In addition to broad concerns about the size of the deficit, Congress is under pressure to raise the legal limit on the national debt before U.S. borrowing exceeds the existing limit -- or face what Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner describes as "catastrophic economic consequences." Geithner's department predicts the current debt ceiling could be exceeded as early as March 31 of this year.
The new Republican leadership in Congress has indicated it will look for progress on deficit reduction before agreeing to raise the federal debt ceiling, and Americans appear to agree with that point in principle. Half of Americans say the limit on the national debt should be raised only if Congress specifies in advance what measures would be taken to reduce the deficit in the future, compared with 16% who think Congress should raise the debt limit regardless. An additional third of Americans have no opinion on the matter.
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
All this poll shows is how uninformed the respondents are.
It’s like asking about healthcare reform … poll after poll has shown that when the questions are directed at specific aspects, the results are different … i.e.Should healthcare reform include a provision that pre-existing conditions is not a reason to deny healthcare insurance ?
Should the military budget be cut ? is a poor question.
Instead, how about “After spending $3.87 Billion for a program that started under President Reagan to develop an Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle that would be used for large-scale amphibious assault landings and was last used in the battle of Inchon during the Korean War, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wishes to terminate the program since General Dynamics has not yet produce one vehicle that meets the Marines needs. (Note: the Marines have 1,063 Amphibious Assault Vehicles available if needed. The cost of the each EVF vehicle has tripled, from $5 million apiece in 1995 to $17 million now.)
Do you approve of Sec. Gates decision to cancel General Dynamics’s $15.5 billion Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) program ?”
OR, In order to create a flatter, more agile and thus more effective military organizational structure, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wants to eliminate more than a hundred general-officer and flag-officer positions out of the roughly 900 currently on active duty. Secretary Gates also wants to eliminate or downgrad nearly 200 civilian senior executive positions, or equivalent positions, out of a total of 1,400 civilian executives. Do you support these cuts ?
OR, The national defense budget accounts for 56 percent of all U.S. federal discretionary spending. Including proposed cuts by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the military budget would be $553 billion in the next fiscal year, close to double the 2001 total, and the amount does not include funds for the war in Afghanistan and reduced operations in Iraq. Should the military budget be exempt from spending cuts ?
OR, Considering that the funding for the War in Afganistan was increased from $59.5 billion in 2009 to $104.9 in 2010, should the Pentagon find some area in their budget to pay for the additional $14.5 billion requested for 2011 ? (Note the FY2011 will be $119.4 billion) Or Should Congress enact a War-surtax to ask every citizen pay for the common defense ?
Wanna guess that if these questions were asked the responses would be different ?
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