Public Opinion

Democracy Corps, a project of political consultants James Carville and Stan Greenberg, released a poll this week that shows voters strongly opposed to budget cuts being proposed by House Republicans. The chart below shows opposition to these cuts when voters learn about the impact on children, youth, women, and families.

How much more simple can this be? Voters do support the idea of cutting $32 billion from the federal budget in the abstract (50% favor-33% oppose). However, when they learn about specific cuts being proposed, support collapses. 50% are opposed (a gain of 17 points) with only 43% in favor. Voters need to know what the House Republican leadership wants to do. It is the only way to stop these stupid and short-sighted cuts.

In recent days, various members of Congress (the Republican Study Committee, Minnesota Representative and Tea Party Leader Michele Bachmann, and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul) have proposed massive budget cuts to education and social safety net programs. A key part of these plans is either elimination of, or deep cuts in, the Department of Education.

Despite all this talk from those proposing these plans that “the American people spoke last November” and they want “massive spending cuts”, current polling shows the opposite. According to Gallup, 67% of Americans oppose cuts to education and 55% oppose cuts to anti-poverty programs. Only a small minority support cuts in education (32%) and anti-poverty programs (39%).

The difference in priorities between some of those in Washington and large majorities of those outside Washington could not be more stark.