According to Rasmussen, 47% of likely voters say they are more worried government will do “too much” in reacting to the nation’s economic problems; 44% are more worried government will do too little.
According to Ipsos/Reuters, 49% off Americans would prefer to extend all the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts; 31% would only extend the tax cuts for people earning less than $200,000; and 15% would allow all of the tax cuts to expire.
According to Rasmussen, 38% of likely voters say last year’s stimulus helped the economy. 36% now say it hurt the economy. 21% say it had no impact.
There is little doubt Americans are feeling anxious and uncertain about the U.S. economy. According to a CBS poll, 83% of Americans think the economy is in “bad” shape; 37% even say it’s in permanent decline. Economists are uneasy as well. As we pointed out last week, GDP growth for the second quarter of 2010 was just revised down to a dismal 1.6%.
So begins a new push for a second stimulus. Laura Tyson, a professor at University of California-Berkeley’s business school, advocates for one in The New York Timestoday. Tyson argues the first stimulus worked well, but because it’ll run out soon, Congress must pass another. She then lays out a laundry list of spending initiatives Congress should pass.
Tyson believes the nation’s debate about economic policy has focused too much on reducing the deficit and too little on reducing unemployment.
As we’ve noted before, Harvard economist Robert Barro has explained why government “stimulus” spending is a bad deal for American taxpayers and is not an effective means for creating jobs. In February he explained, “[V]iewed over five years, the fiscal stimulus package is a way to get an extra $600 billion of public spending at the cost of $900 billion in private expenditure.” In other words, the federal government was trading $9 for $6 dollars. A month earlier he suggested Congress concentrate more on “incentives for people and businesses to invest, produce and work. … [W]e should not be considering massive public-works programs that do not pass muster from the perspective of cost-benefit analysis.”
Economists in a new survey by the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) seem to agree more with Barro than Tyson. Those surveyed do not think a second stimulus would help growth. 58% are against allocating more federal money. NABE President Lynn Reaser sums up the survey: “The near-term focus should be the promotion of economic growth…Respondents also do not believe another stimulus package is necessary but think the various tax cuts should be extended beyond their scheduled expiration at year-end.”
According to the Associated Press, 54% of adults are “very” worried about the effect the federal debt will have on their children’s and grandchildren’s financial future; 26% are “somewhat” worried; 10% are “not too” worried; and 9% are “not at all” worried.
Each week, the Economist asks Americans what they think is the most important issue facing the country.
According to the Associated Press, 45% said they would continue all of the tax cuts; 38% said they would continue only those for households earning less than $250,000 a year; and only 14% said they would let the all of the tax cuts expire.
Democracy Corps recently conducted a poll in which they asked the relative importance of cutting the budget deficit to economic growth: 51% of likely voters said reducing the budget deficit is so important to the nation’s future that we should consider “bold” spending cuts; 42% would focus on new spending to develop new skills and industries.
According to a Fox News poll, 63% of registered voters believe the government is so big that it is hurting the country. 32% (25% of Independents) said the size of the federal government was not hurting the country.
According to a poll by the Pew Research Center, 69% of registered voters say the budget deficit is “very” important to their vote this year. That’s behind the economy (90%), jobs (88%), health care (78%) and terrorism (71%) in terms of intensity.
According to a poll by the Center for American Progress, 66% of adults believe the federal government wastes “a lot” of what Americans pay in taxes.
Also according to the Center for American Progress, 56% of Americans believe they pay “too much” in taxes for what they get from the government. Only 41% said they don’t mind paying what they pay in taxes when they consider what they get.
The Pew Research Center asked adults what course Congress should take on the 2001 and 2003 tax laws. 30% said all of the tax laws should be extended (up from 25% in mid-October 2008); 27% said Congress should extend all but the tax cuts for the “wealthy” (down from 37% nearly two years ago); and 31% said Congress should let all of the 2001 and 2003 tax laws expire (up from 25% in mid-October 2008).
A piece in today’s The Hill highlights Americans’ growing unrest with their nation’s growing deficits.
The federal budget deficit will matter more to voters this year than it has in the past decade, according to polls.
While it continues to trail the near-double-digit unemployment rates and overall state of the economy as a leading concern for voters, it is proving central to the 2010 election.
11 percent of those polled by Gallup said the federal deficit was the most important issue facing the nation … (this is) the highest point since the mid-1990s.
Referring to the explosion in spending, Michael Ettlinger, a vice president at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, warned Washington:
“You fought for it, you did it, you own it, you need to defend it.”
Pew and National Journal saw a dramatic shift over the last five months in the number of Americans who would make cutting the budget deficit a higher priority than spending more in attempt to stimulate the economy.
In February, 47% called cutting the budget deficit a priority; today, that number has risen to 51%. But while 47% also called attempting to stimulate the economy a priority back in February; today that number has fallen to just 40%.
Each week the Economist asks registered voters what they think is the most important issue facing Congress and federal policymakers. This week the economy ranks as the number one concern, health care is second, and social security is third.
