A new poll shows a majority of both Democrat and Republican voters have little appetite to cut certain federal programs.
A recent Hill-HarrisX survey of registered voters looks at what voters think on issues ranging from military spending to education and infrastructure. Voters from both sides of the aisle support increasing federal spending on healthcare, infrastructure, Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits and education.
The pollsters noted their surprise with how Republicans–who campaign on smaller government– wanted to keep federal spending about the same for the State Department, energy, food and drug inspection, unemployment aid, agriculture, fighting crime, scientific research and natural disaster relief.
According to the survey, the main area where Republican voters wanted to see spending cuts was with cutting foreign aid. Almost half of Republicans surveyed–47 percent–support cutting foreign aid while 38 percent want to spend the same amount while 15 percent want to increase it. When it comes to federal spending on environmental protection, 24 percent of Republicans want to cut it while 51 percent want to keep it the same and 25 percent want more spending.
Even on other fronts, Republicans showed little taste for cutting spending with only 22 percent wanting to slash unemployment aid and only 21 percent supporting reducing funds for the State Department.
When it comes to federal programs, Democrats want to keep spending the same or increase it in all areas except for military spending. Only 25 percent of Democrats support an increase in military spending though they are more open to keeping the same levels or increasing spending on all other aspects of the federal government.
The pollsters said their latest survey was very similar to a poll conducted back in April by the Pew Research Center. Pew found there was very minimal support from members of both parties when it comes to cutting federal spending.
The Hill-HarrisX survey of 1,001 registered voters across the nation took place on June 7-8 and had a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percent.
Reach Ed Dean at ed.dean@floridadaily.com.
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