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Monday, March 7th, 2011

Public’s Budget Priorities Differ Dramatically from House and Obama

Author:     NEIL TICKNER
Source:     University of Maryland
Publication Date:     3-Mar-11
 Link: Public’s Budget Priorities Differ Dramatically from House and Obama
Stephan:   I read this to say that the survey shows what the public wants, and the Congressional and administration budgets show varying degrees of allegiance to what the uber-rich and corporations want. This disconnect is eating away at our social fabric, and what is really concerning is how fast this is all happening. A complete report on the new analysis is available online, click through to obtain it. The original study, which produced the public results, was fielded December 18-29, 2010 with a sample of 793 respondents (margin of error plus or minus 3.5 percent). It was conducted using the web-enabled KnowledgePanel®, a probability-based panel designed to be representative of the U.S. population.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – The public is on a different page than either the House of Representatives or the Obama Administration when it comes to the federal budget – with a different set of priorities and a greater willingness to cut spending and increase taxes – concludes a new analysis by the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation2 (PPC).

This new analysis compares the House and administration budget proposals with those produced by a representative sample of U.S. adults. These public budgets were part of an innovative study released3 last month.

While there were some partisan differences in the magnitude of spending changes, two thirds of the time, the average Republican, Democrat and Independent in the survey agreed on the items that should be cut or increased.

* Defense: Public favors deep cuts while the administration and the House propose modest increases.
* Domestic: Public favors substantially more spending on job training, education and pollution control than either the House or the administration.
* Level of Cuts: On average the public made a net reduction in spending of $146 billion – far more than either the administration or […]

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