The Economist is taking a look at the unpleasantness that is the U.S. fiscal situation, and it finds most Americans ready to cut government spending. In fact, when asked whether to cut spending or raise taxes, we chose cutting spending by a 62% to 5% margin (with the other 33% unwilling to commit).
Unfortunately, people don’t want to cut spending on things that we actually spend money on. Check out this comparison from my favorite political science blog, The Monkey Cage:
What is clear from the graphic is that the vast majority of Americans are eager to slash all of that foreign aid we shell out. The problem is, we don’t actually spend much on foreign aid. Many are also willing to gut environmental protection spending, but that doesn’t seem like a very big target, either (though government spending isn’t the same as spending on environmental compliance; then again, spending on compliance doesn’t add to the public debt).
Perhaps we will just inflate the debt away instead.