A Ceiling on Spending
House Republicans say they’ll only discuss raising the federal debt limit if there are some spending cuts in the mix. The Senate Majority Leader yesterday said is this is how the GOP plans to govern, they’re off to a pretty poor start.
Those Republicans have claimed they would govern according to the will of the people…and while plenty of them are D.C. swamp monsters themselves…they do seem to have public opinion on their side on this one.
A new RMG Research poll of 1,000 registered voters showed 61 percent said Congress should either raise the debt ceiling with spending cuts, or not raise it at all. Only 24 percent said the ceiling should be raised without spending cuts.
Another question in the poll pointed out that refusing the raise the debt ceiling would force the government to default on its payments and severely damage the U.S. economy—their words. Even with that, the response of those saying the ceiling should remain or only be increased with spending cuts was overwhelming…62 percent, even a tick higher, in fact, than in the question without the additional statement.
Maybe folks are hearing that the U.S. national debt now stands at $31.5 trillion…and they’re beginning to see that paying that off is going to be impossible enough, without adding to the number, especially since as the Fed raises interest rates, the debt grows because of higher interest alone.
The survey’s margin of error is plus-or-minus 3.1 percentage points…so regardless of how you spin it, the public has had it with all this spending and wants to see cuts.
Wonder what the poll would show if specific examples of cuts were listed.
