Does the public favor defense budget cuts?

By Steven Kull

This article was originally published in tandem with an article by R. Jeffrey Smith on IWatch, a publication of the Center for Public Integrity.

What do average Americans say when they are faced with the budget tradeoffs on national security that policymakers face today? When polls ask in the abstract about defense spending, Americans are often reluctant to cut it. However when Americans are asked to consider the deficit and presented with tradeoffs, majorities cut defense and cut it more than any other area of the budget. Furthermore when they learn how much of the budget goes to defense, large majorities cut it, on average quite deeply.

This issue has become confused in public discussion, because many polls simply ask Americans whether they favor cutting defense, increasing it, or keeping it the same. These find that more favor cuts than increases, but those favoring cuts are still fewer than half of those surveyed. A February 2011 Pew poll found only 30% ready to cut, while fewer (13%) favored increases, and most (53%) said they accepted current levels.

(Image Credit: Greg West)

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Support for Economic Aid Only Modestly Dampened By Economic Downturn

As the World Economic Forum begins its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, amid concerns that the economic slowdown in the wealthy countries is undermining public support for economic aid, newly updated digests of American and international public opinion reveal continued underlying public support for development assistance to poor countries, though there has been a slight softening of support in the United States.

In the European Union, very large majorities in all 27 member states support aid to people in developing countries, and majorities in 25 of them say that the EU should fulfill its past pledge to increase aid, despite the economic downturn. In the United States support for economic aid in principle has softened a bit but still commands the backing of a large majority. At the same time, public support for aid levels continues to be weakened by extreme overestimations about the amount of the U.S. budget that actually goes to aid.

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