Poll: 65% Of Americans Support Balanced Budget Amendment
The problem I see with polls like these is that it’s easy to get majorities to favor balancing the budget. It’s much harder to get majorities to support balancing the budget by cutting specific sorts of spending, or raising taxes.
Because everybody wants a balanced budget. Nobody wants the budget balanced at their expense. Though that really illustrates the need for a balanced budget amendment. Congress needs to be forced to make tough decisions. A BBA would do that.
According to a recent Sachs/Mason-Dixon poll obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller, a large majority of the public backs an amendment to the Constitution requiring a balanced budget, a reform some lawmakers say is on the table in the debt ceiling debate.
65 percent of the public supports the amendment with 27 percent opposed; 8 percent are undecided.
81 percent of Republicans and 68 percent of independents support the amendment. Even a plurality of Democrats, the party that typically resists spending cuts, back the amendment by a 45 percent to 44 percent margin.
“Americans are concerned about our nation’s deepening deficit and as a result, an overwhelming number support a balanced budget amendment,” said Alia Faraj-Johnson, Partner and Executive Vice President of Ron Sachs Communications, the organization that commissioned the poll.
Keep in mind, though, that another poll released earlier indicates that 50% of the public expects the nation to be bankrupt before the budget is ever balanced. There is a high level of support for reining in government deficits. The question is whether or not that’s going to translate into support for painful cuts to spending.
An earlier Reason/Rupe poll indicated some 74% of Americans support some sort of a cap on spending. It’s worth noting that we have a cap on spending, but it doesn’t serve as much of a cap because every time we get near it Congress raises the cap.
What we need is a Constitutional restraint on spending. The biggest obstacle, unfortunately, is Americans’ addiction to government spending.