A couple of months ago, I had some interactions with Rep. Don Bacon about his party’s debt ceiling tactics. As far as the Nebraska Republican was concerned, the GOP was justified threatening to impose an economic catastrophe, on purpose, because in the 2022 midterms, voters elected a new House Republican majority in order to cut government spending.
It was a flawed argument for a handful of important reasons. For one thing, those same voters expanded the Democratic majority in the Senate, which was hardly evidence of a national endorsement of a far-right agenda. For another, Republican candidates didn’t exactly warn the electorate that they were prepared to deliberately crash the economy.
But there was another problem hanging overhead: Were Bacon’s assumptions about public attitudes correct? Are Americans actually desperate to see GOP lawmakers cut government spending? The Associated Press took a closer look in its latest national poll:
In the federal budget standoff, the majority of U.S. adults are asking lawmakers to pull off the impossible: Cut the overall size of government, but also devote more money to the most popular and expensive programs.
The good news for Republicans is that most Americans agree with the party’s goals in a broad, general sense: Six in 10 U.S. adults agree that the federal government spends too much money.
The bad news for Republicans is that this is a superficial belief that unravels when Americans are pressed on the details.
The worst news for Republicans is that the public actually wants more government spending, not less, on a wide range of domestic priorities.
In fact, the closer one looks, the more it appears much of the public believes the government should be quite a bit more ambitious when it comes to public investments. For example, according to the polling data, 53% of U.S. adults believe the government isn’t spending enough money on assistance for child care. What’s more, 58% of Americans believe more should be spent…
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