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Nearly Everybody Wants to Cut Federal Spending?
From a very recent Rasmussen poll:
Eighty-three percent (83%) of Americans say the size of the federal budget deficit is due more to the unwillingness of politicians to cut government spending than to the reluctance of taxpayers to pay more in taxes.
Considering the public pillorying that occurs every time a politician dares to suggest cuts, I find that percentage to be absolutely astonishing.
Are we really this schizophrenic?
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58 Responses to “Nearly Everybody Wants to Cut Federal Spending?”
The EU averages more spending than the USA per GDP. The EU average is around 46%. The EU doesn't have the defence spending eating up it's budget…
That was not my point, I addressed your claim that defense spending didn't directly impact people, which i find to be adsurd. That does not mean i disagree with you in regards to what we need to spend and on what, it merely challenges the directly affect part of your comment.
In total agreement with you and Polimom on this. The fact is, Americans are looking for the federal (and State governments) to take care of problems for them more and more rather than dealing with them themselves. As long as that attitude continues we will likely see a further increase of Government spending of the GDP. I think more personal self sufficiency is the only way to crawl out of this deepening hole.
Thank you for this, statements like this give me hope, people who are willing to make a personal sacrifice of their own free will to help others. I applaud you Sir (or madam).
Mt response was just a generalized rant to the impervious nature of defense spending and certainly not direct specifically to your comment.
It sounds to me you would also agree that local US economies have more to do with bases located in our country as well as those located abroad. We have clearly developed a weird way of enhancing local businesses located around the 500 US bases.
Extra bases and neato weapons may be cool, but if we're serious about the deficit, we need to pare here too. Social programs and defense are not philosophic budgetary choices, they are merely the two biggest, self-inflating costs that drive the budget more than any politics.
Btw
I just got your other comment about my SS proposal, and your welcome. I always thought that is how the US should work.
I like those two ideas.
Here are a few of my own suggestions:
1. End federal funding on non defense items to the States, and reduce federal taxes on these items, the States can raise their taxes as they see fit to cover the gap and the issue is brought closer to the voice of the people.
2. End all tax benefits for married couples. Just because someone chooses to marry someone does not entitle them to a special tax rate as opposed to single people. They should all be treated equally based on income level despite their personal choices. This also relieves part of the gay marriage issue (but not all of course). The government should not be in the business of rewarding or punishing lifestyle choices.
3. End all foreign aid that is not directly linked to national security or humanitarian efforts. (real not imagined or strecthed, just what is needed to defend this country).
4. End all benefits and government payments to illegal aliens
5. End most farm subsidies, especially those which pay people for not using their farmland to produce.
6. Scale back military spending to reflect a more defensive posture and a less emphasis on projecting power. maintain some projection ability and a very good high tech military, but a smaller one for a more limited role abroad.
7. Eliminate any entitlement program based on inequality other than Social security or some other in which people paid into with the understanding of later benefits. Exception made for some children's programs.
8, Eliminate entire government departments on the federal level which duplicate the roles of other federal agencies or state ones, especially when there is no Constitutional role for that agency on the federal level.. For example the Department of Education should be stripped to a bare minimum and the responsibility shifted to the State agencies.
9. Allow Competition to thrive among the States so that the best approaches can come forth and let any uniformity be based on successful models for State government and not a federal mandate that stifles innovations and improvements.
Rudi,
“The EU doesn't have the defence spending eating up it's budget…”
Western Europe relied on the USA for protection during the Cold War. What money it otherwise would have paid for its own defense (if it had chosen to and succeeded in defending itself against the USSR and the Eastern Bloc, if it could, which is arguable) it spent on entitlements and other things instead. It required the USA to intervene for it against Serbia. It faces a financial as well as other kinds of challenges of developing and maintaining its own military, in addition to the hard and almost scary challenge of reforming entitlements in order to face a future that will be more bleak than ours.
There was another Rasmussen poll last week, with this headline:
41% Fine With Budget Deficit If Taxes Are Cut.
Sorry if this has already been posted.