David Paul Kuhn at RealClearPolitics points to a study of Americans’ approaches to balancing the budget that calls the prevailing wisdom, that our collective views are childish and contradictory, into question. The short version is that
- Majorities of both those who professed to be Republicans and Democrats found themselves able to bring the federal budget more closely into balance through a combination of tax increases and cuts to federal programs including entitlement programs.
- Commonsense reforms to Social Security and Medicare, e.g. raising the eligibility ages, raising FICA max, were supported
- Republicans had a more difficult time balancing the budget because they were more reluctant to increase taxes
- Independents cut the deficit the most
Read the whole thing.
It ain’t what you don’t know that will hurt you. It’s what you do know that just ain’t so.
“Independents cut the deficit the most”
Yes!
Thanks. Nice to see an article about Americans not being idiots for once.
This poll seems to be measuring something different. It’s asking people to balance the budget and giving the tools and options to do so. This seems like it is showing how Americans would face this challenge if confronted with it. The more typical polling essentially allows Americans to avoid the challenge.
Looking at the list of cuts, it’s overwhelming coming out of defense ($109.4 b), the second most is intelligence ($13.1 b). In fact, the spending cuts look like they almost all come out of national security, defense, international aid. Shocking!
http://www.public-consultation.org/studies/budget_feb11.html
The SS and Medicare changes are significant, but they probably don’t save money, as much as keep the programs at an affordable level.
Thanks for this Dave. I am reading through the full study and it has lots of interesting bits. Among those, I found it interesting that those making more money were quite opposed to raising the tax burden on the poor and were willing to accept tax increases for themselves. They were most willing to cut defense, while they largely preserved Medicare and Social Security. Those very sympathetic to the Tea Party were least successful at reducing debt.
Steve
“Looking at the list of cuts, it’s overwhelming coming out of defense ($109.4 b), the second most is intelligence ($13.1 b). In fact, the spending cuts look like they almost all come out of national security, defense, international aid. Shocking!”
Which is one reason why polls must be viewed with a jaundiced eye. Its human nature to not want to appear cold hearted in a poll by questioning social spending, but rather to target that evil military-industrial complex. Much more comfortable.
I have pointed out so many times it makes me dizzy that the major story in government spending over the past 50 years has been the rotation out of defense spending and into social spending. Its about 10 points of GDP. Going to the well on defense is fine – I’m sure the budget is bloated – but it is a wasting reserve/backstop, and no effort has been put forth to deal with the real juggernaut: social spending. Even those who cite the Clinton years fail to acknowledge two critical issues: 1) the bubble economy (GDP always produces tax revenues), and 2) the almost 1 – 1 relationship between the decline in defense to GDP and the supposed surplus. They took it out of the hide of defense, and let the social freight train rumble on. Its not sustainable – they kicked the can down the road; but it makes great politics………someone was saying something about childish views??
These discussions often revolve around tax incidence. When is too much too much? Here in IL we are losing population and businesses to more tax friendly environments. Chicago had to back off a sales tax increase. Dick Durbin is struggling to engineer a way to make the IL internet sales tax work by nationalizing it. Gas prices – just like a tax – are now affecting retail sales………and therefore employment. So that leaves us with old reliable: soak the rich. And that, of course, will affect capital formation and job creation.
I know there are so many here, and in the general population, who believe themselves to be “caring” in advocating the tax and spend policies that have been the prevailing policies for 50 years. Just look at the polls: “would you rather tax the rich or screw the poor?” “Gee, let me think about that…..I’m going to take the brave stance: tax the rich.” But I wonder how many understand they are simply providing cover for politicians and their efforts to provide goodies for votes and continuing power. Useful idiots if you ask me. And I wonder what a poll might look like if it acknowledged the invisible victims of policy- like the unemployed?? And of course soon to be: capital.
Planet Money (or Marketplace?) did a round up of tax-migration studies. Apparently the data aren’t too good.
Aging people heading for warm weather looks a lot like people running from taxes. A lot of the “tax to high” studies highlight what is essentially retirement migration.
Or the Californication phenom, when people take (took) housing equity and bailed for seemingly lower cost states. There it was the wealth built in the high tax environment which was the motivator.
It is VERY hard to find population flow between adjacent (cold weather) states, one higher, one lower, in tax.
Drew- This really was not a poll. People were asked to construct budgets. If they did not cut spending or increase taxes, the debt did not go down.
“Even those who cite the Clinton years fail to acknowledge two critical issues: 1) the bubble economy (GDP always produces tax revenues)”
Then did the Bush tax cuts make the economy grow from 2000-2007?
“I know there are so many here, and in the general population, who believe themselves to be “caring†in advocating the tax and spend policies that have been the prevailing policies for 50 years.”
Lord, how I wish you were right. If had tax and spend we would not be looking at this kind of debt. We had cut taxes AND spend.
As to the rest, you are largely correct. Most of our future debt comes from entitlements, especially Medicare. That should be our focus. More specifically, it is health care costs.
Steve