Americans in Poll Say Cut Deficit With Entitlements Secured as Rich Pay Up

Americans in Poll Say Cut Deficit With Entitlements Secured as Rich Pay Up

Americans want Congress to bring down a federal budget deficit that many believe is “dangerously out of control,” only under two conditions: minimize the pain and make the rich pay.

The public wants Congress to keep its hands off entitlements such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, a Bloomberg National Poll shows. They oppose cuts in most other major domestic programs and defense. They want to maintain subsidies for farmers and tax breaks like the mortgage-interest deduction. And they’re against an increase in the gasoline tax.

That aversion to sacrifice is at odds with a spate of recent studies, including one by President Barack Obama’s debt panel, that say reductions in Medicare, Social Security, military and other spending are necessary to curb a deficit that totaled $1.29 trillion in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, or 9 percent of the gross domestic product.

“The idea that we can solve our structural-deficit problems merely by asking more of the well-off is totally unrealistic,” said David Walker, who was U.S. comptroller general from 1998 to 2008 and now leads a group advocating against deficits. “The math simply doesn’t work.”

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Like most polls on the budget, this Bloomberg poll should be taken with a grain of salt: things people say they support in the abstract don’t necessarily command the same support when they become legislative proposals.

Still, it’s striking that what the public claims to want is higher taxes on the rich while defending Social Security and other entitlements; whereas what’s actually likely to happen is just the opposite.

Funny how that works.