The Pew Research Center has an article out about the Budget, the proposals, and (in general) how the public feels about these issues - "fewer want spending to grow, but most cuts remain unpopular".
So, less people want federal spending to increase (great!) but most cuts still remain unpopular. How is it that the public wants the government to deal with the fiscal deficit then?
Other interesting facts from the article are that people's support for unemployment benefits by the government has decreased significantly and people are still supporting spending on education ( 62% favor an increase in education spending!). What does this say about the American society's (changing?) preferences and its Social Welfare Function?
While the article says that unemployment/job creation remains a major concern, support for the unemployed is not favored and at the same time people are in favor of increasing education. Is this because people believe that education will make more people self sufficient and unemployment benefits benefit the lazy/provide disincentives to work?
I would agree with that. With all of the recent government spending I think people have the feeling that there are a lot of people out there free loading and they are tired of it. Spending on education gives people the opportunity to become self sufficient so that they won't have to rely on unemployment benefits and such in the future.
ReplyDeleteIt says that Americans have this ever-changing view of where their money should go, which can be a difficult thing to deal with as the government. Altering spending in different areas of the economy sometimes takes bills and other types of reform, which is hard to change every few months. Education is big for spending and I feel alright about that. People's views on defense spending will always be changing due to the state of our warfare, state of global relationships and how big our deficit is getting. These are tough things to adapt, but obviously we need to try to allocate our $ in different amounts and areas to keep people pretty content.
ReplyDeletePerhaps in light of the economy, people are starting to view education as considerably more important because Americans no longer are just competing among themselves, but with the world for jobs. As for unemployment benefits, I'm not sure if the question should be will they make people lazy, but the fact that they are costing the government quite a bit of money and a lot of people are unemployed right now. If we have the money to pay extended unemployment, couldn't it be used for a works progress program?
ReplyDeleteCan I get a new deal? This article goes along the lines of give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day or teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a life time. Increasing education funding has the potential to make the US labor force more competitive globally.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that this is becuase people feel that education is a great investment because it will make more people self sufficient, while unemployment benefits will provide disincentives to work in a lot of instances. But what about the large percent of the baby boomer generation that is already or about to be relying on federal aid? How can we cut spending on programs that help this generation (which is huge), when they can't reap the benefits of such things like education? Don't get me wrong, I'm by no means saying to cut back on education, I just don't know how to deny our older generation financial support as well.
ReplyDeletepeople support unemployment bennies when they are unemployed, and are all for cutting things as long as it doesnt affect them. Welcome to America.....
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting that Americans viewed President Bush's efforts to improve the economy at comparable stages in his presidency more negatively than Americans view Obama's efforts today, even though the economy was in much better shape for Bush's presidency. Perhaps more Americans are realizing that our country is facing a tough situation,and Obama can only do so much to try to fix it. I also think that it's interesting to link the desire to increase education spending with lowering spending for programs such as unemployment. I think that the desire for more self-sufficiency and less free-loading in America could very well be a reason for why Americans are preferring these spending changes.
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