What Do We Really Think About the Deficit?

From the Brookings Institution - by Pietro S. Nivola, Senior Fellow - Americans are finally according the federal government’s cavernous budget deficit the attention it deserves, and are demanding bold action to reduce it. Right? Well, ... let's see. Granted, the fiscal fiasco has moved up on the list of leading predicaments that people wish their politicians would (in some sense) address. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll last month noted that many more people (20 percent) now rank “the deficit and government spending” well ahead of, say, the supposedly red-hot issue of immigration (7 percent).Still, the deficit hawks remain a relatively small portion of the public compared to the number of persons who cite, first and foremost, “job creation and economic growth.” Thirty-five percent view this challenge—battling the recession—as the highest imperative (one that implies, if anything, a need for deficit-spending). The results of a Fox News poll taken at about the same time were even starker. It found only 15 percent primarily preoccupied with the deficit and government spending—in contrast to 47 percent saying that, as a first order of business, the government ought to be “working on” the economy and jobs.That at most just one-fifth of the public currently regards the deficit as “the top priority” may seem underwhelming, but it isn’t surprising. Read more

What Do We Really Think About the Deficit?