As usual, Americans don’t want to cut spending on programs they benefit from and don’t want to raise taxes except on other people. Bloomberg reports on their latest poll, which pretty much reprises the results of every other recent poll taken on the subject:
Almost 8 in 10 people say Republicans and Democrats should reach a compromise on a plan to reduce the federal budget deficit to keep the government running, a Bloomberg National Poll shows. At the same time, lopsided margins oppose cuts to Medicare, education, environmental protection, medical research and community-renewal programs.
While Americans say it’s important to improve the government’s fiscal situation, among the few deficit-reducing moves they back are cutting foreign aid, pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, and repealing the Bush-era tax cuts for households earning more than $250,000 a year.
In the long term, this won’t work. We’ll need to raise taxes on everyone and rein in healthcare spending even more than PPACA has done. In the short term, though, it sounds pretty good to me. Getting out of Afghanistan and Iraq would save noticeable amounts of money, and so would killing the Bush tax cuts for the rich. It’s a good start.
