Bush's Spending Priorities Not in Line with Americans' - Poll
Given the chance to look at and make changes to the major areas of Bush's proposed discretionary budget for fiscal year 2006, which begins on Oct. 1, 2005, around two-thirds redirected money to reduce the budget deficit, said the poll released Monday by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA).
''The American public as a whole takes a fairly coherent position. They favor redirecting a portion of defense spending to deficit reduction and social spending and look for savings by cutting spending on large-scale Cold War style capabilities,'' said PIPA director Steven Kull.
Republican and Democratic poll participants alike would take the budget axe to spending on defense and on Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites), plowing more funds into education, job training, veterans, and reducing U.S. reliance on oil, the poll found.
The changes they would make would amount to a major redirecting of U.S. foreign and defense policy and reverse key social spending cuts proposed in the Bush administration's budget.
Of nearly 1,200 U.S. adults surveyed, 61 percent reallocated money to reducing the budget deficit. On average, they earmarked an additional $36 billion to cut the overhang. Democrats averaged $39.4 billion and Republicans $29.6 billion.
Defense spending received the deepest cut--an average of 31 percent or the equivalent of around $134 billion--with 65 percent of survey participants doing the cutting. The second largest area to be cut was the supplemental spending for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, with two out of three respondents opting to cut the funding, by an average of $29.6 billion or 35 percent.
- posted by geoff @ #