Surprise! Republicans Don't Support a Single Spending Cut

Impact

With a fiscal cliff deal approaching, Republicans and Democrats are scurrying to come up with anything palatable to the public.

While Republicans are preparing to bend on their firm anti-tax stance, many hope Democrats will similarly yield on the issue of entitlement reform and accept large cuts in the social safety net.

We’ve known for a while that voters support spending cuts generally, but freak out about reform to any entitlement that benefits them.

But just how psyched are Republicans about the proposed spending cuts?

The answer: Not very, according to a recent poll by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion in New York.

Business Insider points out the most salient statistics, and shows what exactly Republicans are against (by massive margins, I might add):

- 47-37, letting the Obama payroll tax cut expire.

- 68-26, cutting spending for Medicare.

- 61-33, cutting spending for Medicaid.

- 66-28, eliminating the tax deduction for home mortgage interest.

- 72-25, eliminating the charitable tax deduction.

- 56-44, raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67. 

Something for Republicans to keep in mind as they seek to finalize a completed debt ceiling and fiscal cliff deal with a heavy emphasis on deficit reduction and entitlement reform.

“No one is very enamored of anything,” stated Lee M. Miringoff, director of the Institute which ran the survey. “There’s no clear statement of what Republican voters want to happen. There’s opposition to everything … If you’re a Republican in Congress looking for what Republican voters are telling you, they’re not telling you much.”

If even conservative voters don’t want cuts in entitlement reform supported by their own party, then maybe – just maybe! – we should begin to consider the tiny little possibility that Congress’s priorities are out of line.