GOP & American Public Disagree On Cuts

The Republican Party has been trying hard to make the deficit a primary issue in the upcoming election. And they have been pretty successful in doing that (even though the deficit is actually going to be smaller this year than last year). A new survey done by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press shows that 69% of the American public now rate the deficit as a "top priority". That should give the Republicans a big boost in the coming November election, right?

Well, no. There are three reasons why this may not be the electoral panacea that the Republicans desire. First, and maybe most important is that there are two other issues that the public considers even more important priorities than the deficit. They are the economy (rated a top priority by 86%) and jobs (rated a top priority by 82%). These are the two issues that are going to be most important in the coming election. And the Republicans have no answer for these problems -- since they still strongly adhere to the same "trickle-down" policies that threw this nation into the recession and cost it millions of jobs.

The second reason is that the public and the Republican Party disagree on how the deficit should be cut. The Republicans want to cut the deficit by only making cuts to government programs without increasing revenues (taxes) at all, but only 17% of the public agrees with that stance. At least 62% of the public (a significant majority) believes the deficit should be reduced with a combination of cuts and increased revenues. This view is backed by the fact that only 33% of the public believes the Bush tax cuts should be extended for those making over $250,000 a year. And 64% would be in favor of raising or eliminating the cap on Social Security contributions, so the rich pay more.

The third reason comes with the nasty details over what to cut. The Republicans laid some of this out in the Ryan budgets, and got a lot of negative feedback from the public. It's easy to say cuts must be made, but much harder to identify exactly where and how much those cuts should be. That's a primary reason why Willard Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential nominee, refuses to be specific about what he wants to cut to bring down the deficit. Here is what the public thinks about cutting in specific areas (with the first number being those in favor of cutting that area, and the number in parentheses being the number who want spending in that area to remain the same or be increased):

Education...............11% (87%)
Public schools...............13% (85%)
Veterans benefits...............6% (91%)
College financial aid...............16% (81%)
Medicare...............12% (83%)
Health care...............24% (71%)
Aid to U.S. needy...............20% (76%)
Social Security...............12% (84%)
Combating crime...............18% (79%)
Infrastructure...............21% (75%)
Environmental protection...............26% (72%)
Scientific research...............23% (73%)
Energy...............23% (73%)
Agriculture...............23% (71%)
Defense against terrorism...............21% (76%)
Military defense...............30% (67%)
Unemployment aid...............28% (68%)
Aid to the world's needy...............45% (50%)

This is why you won't see Willard Mitt Romney (or any other Republicans) get specific before election day about where they want to cut. Every single area but one has at least two-thirds (67%) of the population opposed to cutting it. And that one area, aid to the world's needy, comprises such a tiny portion of the budget that cutting it completely out would not significantly affect the deficit.

It's easy for Republicans to whine about the deficit and demand cuts. But when it comes to how to cut the deficit, or where to cut the budget, they are at odds with a huge majority of the American public.

If the Democrats were smart, they would continually demand to know, all the way up to election day, just what the Republicans would cut if given the chance. There is no good answer to that question for the Republicans. Both refusing to name the areas to be cut or naming the areas to be cut would cost them votes.