WaPo-ABC News Poll: Deficit Best Closed by Cuts and Taxes

[flpoljunkie]

(Emphasis mine)

Poll: Deficit best closed by cuts and taxes

By Jon Cohen
Wednesday, March 23, 12:07 PM

A sizable majority of all Americans — and nearly half of Republicans — say the best way to slice the federal budget deficit is by cutting spending and increasing taxes, according to last week’s Washington Post-ABC News poll.

A slender 3 percent of all those polled said the government should focus exclusively on boosting tax revenue to balance its books, but an additional 64 percent said tax increases should be paired with spending reductions. Overall, 31 percent said deficit reduction is best achieved by spending adjustments.

Among Republicans, nearly half, 49 percent, want the focus on cuts, but about as many, 47 percent, said their preferred approach is a combination of both spending cuts and tax increases.

For Democrats and independents, the dual approach is more popular still, at 77 and 64 percent, respectively.

[KansDem]

1. DU has been advocating this for years!

"spending cuts" -- end the wars
"tax increases" -- end the Bush/Obama tax cuts

No more deficit.

Why does this have to be said over and over?

[flpoljunkie]

4. Why? Because of folks like Grover Norquist and his hold on Republicans

They seem to not to be able to stand up to him and refuse to sign on to his 'no tax increase' pledge.

[bluestateguy]

2. I'm for cutting spending too

And most of it should come from that great big bloated pentagon shaped building across the Potomac River.

[lz1122]

3. We need to do both like you said

Just cutting spending alone won't balance the budget and I'm sure we can look at most departments and programs and trim some waste. I like how that one Army General wanted to have the troops perform the maintenance on the vehicles and other equipment instead of outsourcing. This would save money as well as giving the troops valuable work experience for those that do not want to make a career out of the military. I think that idea is a very progressive/proactive way to reduce spending.

[Cali_Democrat]

5. +1000

[polichick]

6. Closing half of its 800+ bases around the world would end the deficit.

[bornskeptic]

7. That would make a little dent in the deficit,

But obviously it wouldn't come anywhere near ending it. Eliminating all Defense Department spending wouldn't quite quite cover half of the current deficit. Closing 400 bases might reduce the deficit by 1% or so.

[bossy22]

8. that might increase the deficit

if you continue to foward deploy units (which we will continue). Most of those bases are actually supply depots where deployed units can resupply. Its cheaper to have a CSG that is continually stationed in south east asia to resupply in south east asia rather than steaming her all the way back to pearl harbor

[bossy22]

9. where is it bloated?

we refuse to as a nation develop a strategic doctrine and base our spending on that. Instead we continue to expect the military to cover everything under the sun- when you do this you really can't complain about a big budget

We may not need a big army- but we may need a big navy