Posted on 07/22/2011 9:04:05 AM PDT by MissesBush
While Washington wrangles over how to avoid defaulting on the government’s massive debt load, voters are worried the final deal will raise taxes too much but won't cut spending enough.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 62% of Likely U.S. Voters are worried more that Congress and President Obama will raise taxes too much rather than too little in any deal to end the debt ceiling debate. Just 26% fear they’ll raise taxes too little. Twelve percent (12%) aren’t sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Similarly, 56% worry that Congress and the president will cut spending too little in the final debt ceiling deal, while only 25% are concerned that they will cut spending too much. Nineteen percent (19%) are undecided.
There’s a wide difference of opinion, however, between the Political Class and Mainstream voters. Fifty-nine percent (59%) of the Political Class is worried the deal will cut spending too much, while 63% of Mainstream voters fear it won’t cut spending enough. Those in the Mainstream worry more than Political Class voters by a near two-to-one margin – 70% to 37% - that the debt deal also will raise taxes too much.
Whatever spending cuts are in the final deal, 49% of all voters don’t think the government will actually cut the spending agreed upon. Seventy-five percent (75%) believe that even if the deal includes tax cuts only on the wealthy, ultimately taxes will be raised on the middle class, too.
“Based on the history of the past few decades, voters have learned that politicians promising unspecified spending cuts should be treated with all the credibility of a six-year old boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar promising to be good for the rest of his life,” Scott Rasmussen notes in a column for the Politico this week.
Most voters (55%), in fact, oppose including any tax hikes in the debt deal.
(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.
The national telephone survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on July 20-21, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.See methodology.
The partisan differences in the new findings help explain what’s driving the debt ceiling debate in the Nation’s Capital with Republicans pushing for spending cuts alone and Democrats insisting that tax increases be part of the package.
Seventy-nine percent (79%) of Republicans - and 58% of voters not affiliated with either major party - worry that the final debt deal will cut spending too little. A plurality of Democrats (41%), however, voice the opposite fear and worry that spending will be cut too much.
Eighty-five percent (85%) of GOP voters and 60% of unaffiliateds fear the deal will raise taxes too much. Democrats are evenly divided on this question.
Interest in the ongoing negotiations remains high, with 84% of all voters saying they are following news reports about raising the debt ceiling at least somewhat closely. Fifty-three percent (53%) are following Very Closely.
Voters feel more strongly than ever that decreasing government spending is good for the economy and that tax increases of any kind are bad economic medicine.
While voters agree that failing to raise the federal government’s debt ceiling is bad for the economy, 52% believe it would be more dangerous to raise the debt ceiling without making significant cuts in government spending. Thirty-seven percent (37%) take the opposite view and believe a government default would be more dangerous.
Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.
The country does not have a tax problem. It has a job problem. We have the lowest taxes in 50 years and the highest unemployment. If the 15-20 million un/under employed were working, paying taxes and buying things, our economy problems would vanish.
Every deal seems to be just smoke and mirrors. Even “cut-cap-balance” won’t balance our budget for more than a decade.
In order to “pay down the debt”, we can’t run a deficit.
It’s time for real spending cuts now.
The only debt ceiling deal I’d ever agree to is one that cuts enough spending that the ceiling doesn’t have to be raised.
Amen!
The only way we can actually get cuts is if we cut right away. Slash government spending. At the very minimum, return spending to pre-2006 levels and enact Cut/Cap/Balance and the Ryan plan(I think there’s some overlap, but disregard that). As Andrew Johnson said, the goal is for a poor government but a rich people.
But...but....Dear Leader said 80% of the “people” want higher taxes
No way! /s
No fear here.
Disgust, anger, defiance - THAT there’s plenty of here.
Any plan that raises taxes for promises of future cuts is a non-starter. Any body who buys that is a fool.
I believe that you are on the mark.
What are we going to do after they raise the debt ceiling and our taxes?
“I believe that you are on the mark.”
You are right. Obama doesn’t even HAVE a plan. We are negotiating with...what...exactly. If the other side has nothing better to offer, tell them to put up or shut up.
“With a straight face, President Obama told us that 80% of Americans WANT tax increases....”
This must be the same 80% who think that Democrats are better in handling the economy than Republicans.
LOL!!
It only take the “Application of the Legistlatures of two thirds of the several States” [ie 34] to “call a Convention for proposing Amendments. In this case the House and Senate of the US have NO say!
STATES RULE!
All we seem to have here is more of the same — they just want to continue to take more from the producers to spend more on the non—producers.
Really — NOTHING has changed. These past few weeks have been nothing but a wiz bang dog and pony show.
I’m sick of the SHOW. They’re not going to do a THING about our troubles.
First, we DO need a deal.
Second, we do NOT need to cave to get a deal.
That is the art of negotiation.
I am encouraged by Boehner’s latest statements: He has not made an agreement and is pointing to the Cut Cap and Balance as the framework. That’s the right way to do this. KEEP coming back to CUT CAP and BALANCE and get the other side close to that position.
Anyone, like BOR, talking about how the Tea party is blowing is, is being ignorant, the Tea Party has just scored some MAJOR VICTORIES. vote in House and senate shows strong support for cut, cap and balance. We need to be firm but not brittle, and hold out for a deal that has real spending cuts, not tax increases, and caps spending. we will get one.
Boehner told reporters there “never was an agreement” with the White House on a grand bargain.
GOP members on Friday insisted the Senate should amend “cut, cap and balance” and send an alternative back to the House.
Boehner claimed two-thirds of the pubic supports the plan, which would cut at least $6 trillion in spending over a decade without revenue increases. This is based on a CNN poll from this week that found 66 percent of the public favor a plan roughly like it. The same percentage also favored a plan roughly resembling President Obama’s mix of cuts and tax increases on business and the wealthy.
“The House has done its job, and I hope the Senate will do theirs. And if they don’t pass our version of ‘cut, cap and balance,’ guess what? That is what the legislative process if for. They can amend it, they can change it, they can send it back over to the House,” Boehner said.
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/172985-boehner-we-are-not-close-to-a-debt-ceiling-deal
THIS. 10,000 times!
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