The Harris Poll^® #30, April 10, 2007

Closing the Budget Deficit: U.S. Adults Strongly Resist Raising Any Taxes Except "Sin Taxes" Or Cutting Major Programs

Many economists worry about the size of the Federal Government’s budget deficit, but a new Harris Poll underlines the difficulty facing any political leaders who want to reduce it. There is very strong resistance to raising any taxes and almost no support for cutting the major entitlement programs which account for a big share of Federal Government spending. For example, only 15 percent of all U.S. adults think that taxes should be increased to reduce the budget deficit. And, if taxes have to be increased, there is overwhelming opposition to increasing the estate tax, gas taxes, income taxes, the Social Security tax or the Medicare tax.

These are just some of the results of a nationwide Harris Poll of 2,223 adults surveyed online between March 6 and 14, 2007 by Harris Interactive^®. Other findings include:

• A 71 percent to 15 percent majority of adults do not think "it is necessary to increase taxes to reduce the budget deficit". Large majorities of Republicans, Democrats and Independents feel this way;
• Even if taxes "had to be raised", very large majorities oppose raising the estate tax (64%) gas taxes (82%), income taxes (81%), the social security tax (83%), and the Medicare tax (87%);
• The only two taxes on the list shown to those interviewed which would be acceptable to majorities of adults ("if taxes had to be raised") are taxes on cigarettes and beer and alcohol, with 73 percent and 72 percent of adults respectively saying these so called "taxes" should be increased;
• When it comes to cutting government spending, there is little support for cutting any substantial programs. Given a list of twelve federal government programs and asked to pick two which should be cut ("if spending had to be cut") space programs top the list by a wide margin (51%). Significant minorities, all under 30 percent, pick welfare programs (28%), defense spending (28%), farm subsidies (24%), environmental programs (16%), homeland security (12%) and transportation (11%). Hardly anyone would cut Medicaid (4%), education (3%), Social Security (2%) or Medicare (1%).

The largest differences between Republicans and Democrats relate to three programs. Republicans (43%) are much more likely than Democrats (18%) to choose to cut welfare programs. They are also more likely than Democrats to choose cuts in environmental programs (30% compared to 7%). Democrats (45%) are much more likely to want to cut defense spending than Republicans (8%).

This Harris Poll underlines the political difficulties of closing the budget deficit. Once a tax has been cut, there is usually a lot of resistance to increasing it again. And, once money is committed to a program or entitlements are established, cutting back on that spending is also very tough.

The 2008 elections may well involve some discussion of the need to reduce the budget deficit, but given these results, it will be a brave, and possibly fool-hardy, candidate who gets into specifics about how to do this.

"Do you think it is necessary to increase taxes to re duce the budget deficit?

Base: All adults

"If taxes had to be raised in order to increase revenues, how would you feel about raising the

following types of federal taxes?

Base: All adults

Note: Percentages may not add up to exactly 100% due to rounding

"If spending had to be cut on federal programs, which two federal program(s) do you think the cuts

should come from?"

Base: All adults

Note: Percentages do not add up to 200% because some people only picked one program

This Harris Poll^® was conducted online within the United States between March 6 and 14, 2007, among 2,223 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.

All surveys are subject to several sources of error. These include: sampling error (because only a sample of a population is interviewed); measurement error due to question wording and/or question order, deliberately or unintentionally inaccurate responses, nonresponse (including refusals), interviewer effects (when live interviewers are used) and weighting.

With one exception (sampling error) the magnitude of the errors that result cannot be estimated. There is, therefore, no way to calculate a finite "margin of error" for any survey and the use of these words should be avoided.

With pure probability samples, with 100 percent response rates, it is possible to calculate the probability that the sampling error (but not other sources of error) is not greater than some number. With a pure probability sample of 2,223 adults one could say with a ninety-five percent probability that the overall results would have a sampling error of +/- two percentage points. However that does not take other sources of error into account. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

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