Poll: Americans Want Deficit Cut, Oppose Fixes 9DEZ10

WE all know something needs to be done to address the deficit problem, but it has to be done morally and not on the backs of the poor, the working class, the middle class. We have to break the hold the greedy and wasteful military-industrial complex has on this nation, and we have to end corporate welfare, especially the tax loopholes  that reward companies for creating jobs overseas. The American people are fed up with the greed of wall street financiers and corporate executives and want an end to the growing income inequality we are now suffering. The best way to start fighting for our rights and to protect the economic and financial future of future generations is to force Congress to reject Pres Obama's tax cut plan and force them to develop a plan that represents the best interest of the majority of the American people. 
A strong majority of Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, say they support a combination of spending cuts and tax increases to cut the deficit — but they falter when asked whether they support specific fixes.
That's according to the latest poll from the Pew Research Center. The center interviewed 1,500 adults in early December. Seven in 10 say the deficit is a major problem that must be addressed right now.

Reactions To Specific Proposals To Cut The Deficit

More than 70 percent of Americans polled in early December say the federal budget deficit is a major problem that must be addressed now. But a mere 30 percent approve the deficit commission's overall proposals on how to specifically do so. See how support for each proposal breaks out.

Source: Pew Research Center
Credit: Stephanie d'Otreppe/NPR

"Only 23 percent say, 'Let's wait till the economy gets better,' " Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Center, tells NPR's Melissa Block.
Kohut says that in theory, Americans are open about ways to deal with the deficit, whether cutting government programs or increasing taxes. But when Pew drilled deeper, support waned.
The Bowles-Simpson deficit commission has proposed 12 ways to cut spending — and on all but two, Americans opposed them.
The two that engendered majority support were raising the Social Security contribution cap for affluent earners and freezing the salaries of federal workers. Other ideas — like raising the national gasoline tax — were fiercely opposed.
"For most of these issues, people are saying, 'No, we don't want to do that,' even though they're expressing with such sincerity and intensity, 'We gotta do something about this deficit,' " Kohut says.
Partisan Differences?
When it comes to party differences, Kohut says Democrats more than Republicans favor cutting back on weapons programs and troop levels.
But overall, the partisan differences are only "a matter of degree," he says. The majority of voters from both parties do not approve of such ideas as introducing a national sales tax and eliminating the home mortgage interest deduction.
Kohut says that one of the more interesting findings was that among the people who say they are Tea Party supporters, 65 percent opposed cutting federal funding for state programs like education and roads.

Read The Full Poll

Deficit Solutions Meet With Public Skepticism

"And they have been vocal opponents of federal spending," he says.
Kohut says the government is going to have to make some hard decisions.
"As a pollster, I hate to say this, but this problem is going to be solved in spite of public opinion, not in response to public opinion," Kohut says. "We've seen numbers like this before. This is going to call for sacrifice and it's going to take an awful lot for America's political leaders in the Congress and the White House to sell these painful changes."