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发帖数: 29846 | 1 50% Now Oppose President’s New Spending Proposals
Thursday, January 27, 2011
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The president’s Tuesday night State of the Union speech had little impact
on support for his new spending proposals in areas like education,
transportation and technological innovation.
Rasmussen Reports asked voters the same three questions about the president
’s economic proposals on the two nights prior to the speech and then again
on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
On the first two nights, 39% supported the proposals. On the next two nights
, support was 41%.
Fifty percent (50%) of Likely U.S. Voters now oppose the federal government
spending more money in areas like education, transportation and
technological innovation, up from 45% in the previous survey. Forty-one
percent (41%) favor the idea, a two-point increase from before. (To see
survey question wording, click here.)
Forty-nine percent (49%) of voters now say cutting federal spending is
better for the economy than increasing federal spending in these targeted
areas. But 34% disagree and say increasing spending is better. Sixteen
percent (16%) are not sure.
This marks little change from the survey released Tuesday when 47% opted for
spending cuts and 33% liked increased spending better. Twenty-one percent (
21%) were undecided.
As for the federal budget deficit, voters remain strongly skeptical that
Obama will cut it in half by the end of his first term in office as he vowed
in a speech to Congress early in his presidency. Just 22% say it’s at
least somewhat likely that he will achieve that goal. That’s virtually
identical to the numbers from before the speech.
(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls).
Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.
The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on January 25-26, 2011 by
Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points
with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys
is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
The president argued strongly in his State of the Union speech for a
bipartisan effort to create jobs, but most Americans (60%) think the best
thing the government can do is get out of the way.
Sixty-eight percent (68%) of voters prefer a government with fewer services
and lower taxes rather than a more active one with more services and higher
taxes, consistent with findings with months. Yet despite the Republican
takeover of the House, voters still expect government spending, taxes and
the deficit to go up over the next two years.
Two-out-of-three Democrats (66%) favor more government spending – or “
investment” as the president called it in his speech – in areas like
education, transportation and technology. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of
Republicans and 62% of voters not affiliated with either of the parties are
opposed to additional spending like this.
But then 67% of GOP voters and 61% of unaffiliateds think cutting federal
spending would do more to help the economy than increased federal spending
in these areas. Most Democrats (57%) disagree and say increasing spending in
these targeted areas would be more beneficial to the economy.
On both questions, unaffiliated opposition to increased federal spending has
jumped since the previous survey. The views of Democrats and Republicans
are unchanged.
Majorities of all three groups think the president is unlikely to cut the
federal deficit in half by the end of his first term in 2012, although
Democrats are less pessimistic than Republicans and unaffiliated voters.
Seventy-one percent (71%) of the Political Class favors the president’s new
spending proposals; 62% of Mainstream voters do not.
Sixty-three percent (63%) of those in the Mainstream prefer cutting federal
spending to increasing it in certain areas, but 56% of the Political Class
like the idea of targeted spending increases.
The new findings mark increased support and opposition from both groups.
Obama in recent days has been earning his highest job approval ratings in
nearly a year in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.
Voters are also showing less negativity toward both his leadership abilities
and style.
A sizable number (79%) of voters planned to follow Obama’s State of the
Union speech, but most also acknowledged that presidents generally don’t
accomplish most of what they promise in their annual addresses to the nation
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