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The Spectacle Blog
Despite all the talk about Americans’ appreciation for limited government, a new CNN poll finds that they have little appetite for spending cuts to actual programs that would be necessary to reduce the deficit.
The poll gave respondents a list of government programs and asked whether they would prefer to reduce the deficit, or prevent significant cuts to the programs. The response was discouraging: 79 percent said they’d prefer avoiding cuts to Medicare; 69 percent said the same about Medicaid; 78 percent on Social Security; 61 percent wanted to preserve aid to farmers; 65 percent said that about college loans; and 61 percent about unemployment assistance.
The only programs in which a majority favored cuts were funding to the arts, salaries and benefits for federal employees and “welfare programs in general.” Defense spending was closely divided, with 49 percent wanting to prevent cuts, and 48 percent willing to cut defense to reduce the deficit.
As I noted in a pie chart recently, if you take entitlements and defense spending off the table, that makes 83 percent of the federal budget untouchable.
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More Blog Posts by Philip Klein
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Eric Cartman| 11.18.10 @ 3:50PM
Ask these same people if they wish to fully fund these programs or if they want to be beholden to the Red Chinese. Ask them if they think these programs need to be redesigned and rethought out. How come pols always ask the questions Liberals would ask the way Liberals would ask them. The pol seems to mean nothing in reality.
Flee| 11.18.10 @ 3:59PM
What are social security, medicare and medicaid if not welfare programs? Why not frame the questions in a way that we get valuable responses? CNN did not want valuable responses but ones that fit their slant. Ask the pollees how they would reduce spending and see what they say. That might open some eyes. Of course I'm 48 and have never been polled. How do they choose those to poll anyhow?
Ross Kaminsky | 11.18.10 @ 4:00PM
Phil,
Some of the apparent anti-cut result of this poll would be the way the question was phrased, namely tying it to Obama's "Deficit Commission". That alone probably accounts for most of the skepticism among conservatives.
If the question had been asked without tying it to Obama, the results may have been noticeably different.
Derek Leaberry| 11.18.10 @ 4:14PM
As Berthold Brecht once put it, conservatives might need to elect a new people. The truth about the American majority- soft, greedy, dishonest, childish, slovenly, dependent and immoral.
Grzmlyk| 11.18.10 @ 4:38PM
Maybe if they're asked if they'd like the government to pay for all these programs with worthless dollars they'd change their opinion.
We are BROKE. Fini. There ain't any more gas in the tank.
That's what is so damned insidious about government programs - once you create a "free" program, it's impossible to kill (as Reagan said, the closest thing to immortality on earth is a government program).
This is what liberals count on - that, once milk is flowing from the nipple, people won't want to pull away from the teat.
That's why the riots of the kind we've seen in Europe are headed our way.
And why the tea partiers will, for the most part, fold like cheap suitcases.
And why we are already over the cliff - and the collapse of the dollar, the country and the West are imminent. The tectonic plates have already shifted.
mtgrant| 11.18.10 @ 10:59PM
disagree about the teapartiers folding - not gonna happen.
JP| 11.18.10 @ 4:55PM
There, my friends are the 3 trillion reasons why Obama will get re-elected. Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid represent the lion's share of the tens of trillions in unfunded liabilities.
That's the bad news. The good news is that we cannot fund these programs without sending this nation into 3rd World status. There is no way the Americans who work will be willing to fork over every nickle they earn to the federal government. For, that is what it would cost. The "rich" do not even come close to being able to pay for even 1/10th of our liabilities. Just think, Buffet's net worth is equivalent to 2 years of funding for the Center for Public Broadcasting. The richest man in the world's net worth only covers Big Bird and NPR for a few years - chump change.
The Gravy Train has left the station. The sooner we can take our medicine the better off we and future generations will be.
Brendan McCall| 11.18.10 @ 5:23PM
Check your facts JP, for fiscal year 2010, the Center for Public Broadcasting's appropriation was $422 million, and Warren Buffet is currently thought to have something upward of $43 billion. By my math, he could fund it for the next fifty years and still be richer than you or I will ever be. only 15% of our nation’s wealth is in the hands of those in the bottom 80% of our nation, but more than ten trillion dollars passes through the hands of those top 20%. Increasing the tax rate to 50% should have the debt paid off in four year (terrible idea, it would cripple the economy) but people who say our great grandchildren will be paying off the debt are assuming we never raise taxes on anyone ever again. There is a price to the lowest tax rate in the industrialized world.
CalMark| 11.18.10 @ 5:27PM
How hard is this, anyway? First of all, this is a CNN poll with a highly suspect motive. Secondly, everyone acts as the budget is mostly sacred. Nonsense!
Obama increased annual spending by about $1 trillion above and beyond the biggest Bush-era deficit of $400 billion. Start by cutting all of that. That's almost half the Federal budget, right there.
Bureaucrats and hangers-on lose funding and jobs? Too bad. The dependent classes need to be confronted and defeated. Let them scream--and counter-blitz them with ads explaining reality. And if they start machinating illegally as all the Democrat organizations do, slam them legally--up to and including treason.
Enough wonkery. Enough timidity. This is a time for choosing and for courage. Failure to show both, will lead to the loss of the country.
Oldefarte| 11.18.10 @ 5:28PM
I'm tired of hearing this HORSE EXCREMENT concerning taking this, that and the other OFF OF THE TABLE. Why in Hades should anything be off of the cutting table? As to these polls, they are typical manipulated numbers for political purposes [probably everyone currently on unemployment was surveyed and favored not decreasing NOT DECREASING/ELIMINATING their unemployment payments.....golly gee really???]. Why should anything be excluded from payment cutting and why should [as the corrupt Democrats always suggest] SS and Medicare always be the suggested talking points regarding governmental spending cuts? SS/Medicare represent the benefits seniors WHO HAVE WORKED THEIR LIFETIMES AND CONTRIBUTED TOWARDS WITH THEIR PAYROLL DEDUCTIONS AND NOW ARE BEING REPAID BY THE GOVERNMENT FOR SAME DEDUCTIONS. Let talk about cutting the welfare of Medicaid [which no recipient ever has previously paid, as with SS/Medicare] and is a medical premium expendature for the truly indigent. Why not reduce/eliminate Medicaid [like Texas' Perry is proposing]? Why not cut foreign aid, farm aid, school lunch programs, bus transportation of public school children, unnecessary military hardware,etc????
Oldefarte| 11.18.10 @ 5:32PM
PS: Let's talk about eliminating the GSE's of Fannie/Freddie and their $billions of federal expense expendatures for providing welfare housing to indigents by granting AFFORDABLE HOME [BS] that taxpayers are now on the financial hook for [and while the federal government are supplying states' AG's to stop banks from foreclosing on same? Let cut/eliminate this welfare BS????????
Jim Hlavac | 11.18.10 @ 6:02PM
Why not pick off the low hanging fruit, like say, the Department of Commerce. Surely no one could even say what they do -- I can't, can you? I'm sure it's all very worthwhile, ahem. But do we really need a whole department for commerce in a nation of professional consumers? And while it might be a measly few billions, well, it's a start. And just get rid of all those employees, too. One less cabinet department, to get us used to the idea could be a nice way to go.
And how about slowly, oh, say 5% or 10% a year, cutting farm subsidies. I'd get rid of the mohair subsidy first, which is just a $150 million (that tiny, too) and while a drop in the bucket, again a good start. Isn't the job of these representatives to go through the cabinet departments every so often to get rid of some outdated, outmoded and worn out parts that just make no sense any more?
I love the idea that somehow this all has to be resolved overnight in some magic bullet way. Well, no, I don't. This is going to be a long process of slowly chipping away at what exists, making sure nothing else is created, and working on a way to remove the people from the "heroin" of government largesse, to which we all, poor and rich, white and black, and in between, have all become addicted.
The Tea Party shaken new Republican majority in the House hasn't even been sworn in, and already there's CNN saying it won't work. Sure, sure. And does anyone truly believe that a CNN poll could be fair or represent any actual broad based opinion survey? Why even worry what it says?
Quartermaster| 11.18.10 @ 6:31PM
In the end it won't matter what those polled think they want. Reality doesn't care they don't have the appetite to defund most of the FedGov does illegally. It will be defunded voluntarily or the universe will reach up and smack them and do it anyway. And, if the universe does it, it will be even uglier than if it is done in a controlled fashion.
VN Vet| 11.18.10 @ 9:03PM
One has to keep in mind that this is a CNN Poll. But if the people don't understand what spending is constitutional and what isn't, then the republicans should all resign and let the blanking marxists take over, and let them see what that brings them. Ignorant bastards!
Spook| 11.18.10 @ 9:39PM
CNN poll? Must have been all democrats to come up with these results.
David W| 11.18.10 @ 9:50PM
HEY, HAS ANYONE OUT THERE WHO READS AMERICAN SPECTATOR (or other conservative magazine) EVER BEEN POLLED? I'M 52 AND HAVE NEVER EVER BEEN POLLED FOR ANY POLITICAL ISSUE.
I wonder who is being polled all the time. And what the demographics are of the pollees. Ask 20,000 people who are on welfare if welfare should be cut and you might find out that most would be against it. Think that might skew some of the results?
thirteen28| 11.18.10 @ 11:39PM
Unless the poll asked whether cutting those programs is preferable to national bankruptcy and economic collapse, then the poll is not only useless, but just a tool to give cover to cowardly politicians who want to hide their heads in the sand and do nothing about the problem.
Show someone the math of what's coming and suddenly cuts to those programs won't look so bad.
bert| 11.19.10 @ 1:34AM
Dear Phillip
I hate to break the facts of life to you but there is no easter bunny and CNN is a Dem party propaganda front group.
Gee , the fact the CNN polling group are owned and operated by HUGE Dem party fundraisers and certified Friends of Hillary donors has no impact on their Dem party PUSH POLLS.
Phillip do I need to spill the beans on Santa too ?
Why does a conservative still beleive a single vowel issued by the Clinton news network !
martin j smith| 11.19.10 @ 8:17AM
Its all about the question of how its is asked. For example supposing you asked someone: Given the economic problems would YOU be willing to take a 10% paycut to help the situation improve. I would be 90% on a yes or no would say "no". And why not --no surprise--I would say"no" as well. The reason is obvious: Why should I make a sacrifice when I know that there are many people ouyt there who will not.
Supposing the question were asked this way: Suppose there are an automatic 10% cut to every American and no exemptions. Also every government worker and politican must publicly prove they are participating--and this would be overseen and documented, would you be willing to agree ? I bet the chances are that more people would say yes ( and I would add that the rational would be explained in a way that was logical,reasonable and truthful--certified by a broad spectrum of political leaders including conservatives,tea partiers and in the Democrat opposition as well. I know pie in the sky but this is just an example. Its all in how the question is put and the context.
Pespada| 11.19.10 @ 9:19AM
Leaving aside the question of the dependability of a CNN poll, when you order a steak, are you expected to participate in the slaughter? That's why these politicians were elected a couple of weeks ago, force them to make the squeamish but necessary decisions. They've been dodging it for a long time.
yates sealander| 11.19.10 @ 9:27AM
It would be interesting if the poll asked only those who actually pay income tax as ~47% don't pay any. Why should people who don't pay care care about cutting benefits and increasing taxes?