Least Popular Deficit Reduction Measures Pursued By White House, Congress, Poll Shows

WASHINGTON -- Congress and the president are set to reduce the federal deficit in the least popular ways possible, according to data from a new Bloomberg News poll.

The survey, released Thursday and Friday, found that the most popular options for reducing the deficit was cutting Social Security benefits for high-income earners, with 64 percent favoring that idea.

The third and fourth most popular ideas were raising the amount of salary subject to Social Security tax beyond the current $107,000 a year (52 percent) and gradually raising retirement age to 69 (49 percent).

Yet the White House announced Thursday that President Obama would take changes to Social Security off the table when he makes suggestions for finding savings. "There will be no Social Security in the recommendations," said White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage.

On the congressional side, House Republicans have repeatedly declared that raising taxes is a non-starter -- a stance House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) reaffirmed in a Thursday speech. Yet, the Bloomberg survey found that repealing the Bush-era tax cuts on households earning more than $250,000 is the second most favored idea, at 54 percent.

What that leaves on the table are deficit-trimming plans that few people like, such as cutting Medicaid and Medicare by targeting providers, cutting back on the military or trimming cost-of-living increases in Social Security.

Cutting Medicaid gets the least support, at 21 percent, with 76 percent opposed. Slightly less despised by the public are cutting payments to Medicare providers, with 66 percent opposition, and cost-of-living cuts in Social Security, with 63 percent opposed.

But Obama's plan for savings released last spring includes extracting about $480 billion from Medicare and Medicaid providers. He and many in Congress also favor achieving COLA cuts by switching the government to a "chained" consumer price index for measuring inflation. Social Security cost-of-living hikes are pegged to inflation, and the chained CPI measures a lower rate of inflation than the current method.

Also high on the disapproval scale are hiking Medicare co-payments (62 percent opposition) and privatizing Medicare (57 percent) -- both of which have been proposed by the GOP.

Another unpopular cut is slashing the military, which 56 percent oppose. That is the default option in deficit-cutting law Congress passed over the summer to hike the debt ceiling. If the Super Congress fails to come up with at least $1.2 trillion in cuts, the law requires $500 billion in cuts to the military.

The insistence of leaders on taking popular deficit-slashing options off the table in favor of unpopular ones may help explain another poll out Friday -- a New York Times/CBS News survey that found only 12 percent of the nation giving Congress a positive rating and just 6 percent of voters saying most members deserve to be reelected.

Comments

[Gottlieb]

01:38 AM on 09/19/2011

Our congress critters only care about us when they need our votes for election when backed by their paymasters, they come a pandering for votes.

[peter paulson]

01:13 AM on 09/19/2011

The man has no plan and refuses to provide alternatives to Simpson/Bowles or Ryan. Total politician and no ability to lead. Presidency by the seat of your pants. We are in trouble. No vision, no goal, no plan; just elevated rhetoric and eloquent delivery. Good God man, give us the plan, not the rhetoric----please.

[Pete S]

06:43 PM on 09/20/2011

I agree 100 percent. John Boenher has been spewing the same rhetoric for the past 2 years!!
How any Republican could follow this mantra of Boehner and keep their sanity is beyond me.
First it was one of the biggest lies out there - tax cuts for the rich create jobs. Second big lie was that business is nervous because they don't know what is going on. Business only gets nervous when they have no customers. Third big lie - Class Warfare on the rich. Truth is it has been warfare on the middle class - kill unions, kill voting rights for minorities,students,elderly. Boehner has only offered plans that really kill jobs more tax cuts for the rich, tax the middle class to pay for it,etc. Middle class Republicans help carry the cash to the bank for the wealthy and think they will somehow benefit -will never happen!!! You are right that the Pres has lead by the seat of his pants at times and it is a good thing the way these republicans have declared war on him and the middle class.

Pete & Sue

[peter paulson]

07:30 PM on 09/20/2011

How clever.

[mudshark12]

12:57 AM on 09/19/2011

"Yet the White House announced Thursday that President Obama would take changes to Social Security OFF the table when he makes suggestions for finding savings. "There will be NO Social Security in the recommendations," said White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage."

Glad to hear it as I've been paying into SS all my life. This is one program that works, is solvent and needs to be left alone. It's a humongous pot of money that Wall St banksters wish to steal from us so they've been spinning out the lies for years about it.

[peter paulson]

01:17 AM on 09/19/2011

Do you think the empty suit will veto anything from the super-committee that touches entitlements?

[mudshark12]

01:53 AM on 09/19/2011

Social Security is NOT an entitlement as the employees put in 1/2, the employers put in 1/2 and the government puts in ZERO (other than adjusting the retirement age requirement upwards and various other screw jobs).

[eclub]

09:47 PM on 09/18/2011

If we are having tough times now, with record unemployment, and home foreclosures, why should this administration be worrying about the next generation?

This administration, and this President should worry about today, tomorrow, and at the most the next year.

Stop trying to get America on a prosperous 2050! Take care of today, and we'll be just fine a generation from now. I know it makes your administration appear "smart" to help America put away for a rainy decade, but it makes you look inept to have unemployment that high, and foreclosure so many today!

Everything you do from here on, should be geared towards today's rainy forecast.

[hangdogit]

12:00 AM on 09/19/2011

I see the urgency and understand the point that you make -- but also think that lack of planning for the future and just worrying about the next quarterly report or election -- is exactly what got us in this deep hole. Examples:

1. "Regime change" as THE initial goal in Iraq -- with scant thought of what comes next. We're still somewhat there -- and will be for the foreseeable future. Similar in Afghanistan -- the worst-ever example of being on the losing side of asymetrical warfare,

2. Ignoring Carter's energy warning, buying gas-guzzling SUVs, not to transition to renewable energy with Cap and Trade -- thus getting us much more dependent on foreign oil from often-hostile regions.

3. Presidents of both parties -- but MUCH more so Republicans like Reagan and W -- taking the easy route by deficit spending. And the GOP anti-tax crusade has left us with the biggest deficits ever and lowest taxes since the '50s -- way out of whack. The bill for those short-sighted decades of putting off the day of reckoning is due.

4. Letting a once-great K-12 public education system spiral downward while bickering over its causes. In the meantime, many otherwise second-tier nations are zooming past us. This is the saddest, because our children -- and their ability to succeed in the modern world -- ARE our future.

I don't have good answers other than to pull back from foreign entanglements and focus on the US -- we need it.

[peter paulson]

01:23 AM on 09/19/2011

Wow. Just wow. I have grandchildren. You obviously care about no one but yourself. I'll bet you have a totally different view of the environment. Just guessing but with a few words I'd peg you as a green liberal.

[balthus]

09:40 PM on 09/18/2011

Instead of sending our country to war in Iraq in order to protect our oil supply (and in the process ruining our economy by taking the cost of the war off the books), Bush could have bought every licensed driver in America a new Toyota Prius (or equivalent US made hybrid). And it would have cost less.

In the short term, Americans would have spent their savings on car payments on other merchandise, boosting the economy. And in the long run, we would have made a big dent in our consumption of oil, meaning all those dollars going overseas every month to pay for oil would stay here, to be spent on products and services American companies provide.

The same could be done now, with electric cars. There are entire industries just waiting to explode once the tipping point of electric car production, purchase and use is reached - which our government could help us reach, if we weren't still busy spending billions on oil wars.

But like with the Social Security debate, as long as politicians are more eager to please their corporate donors than they are to do what's best - even what's most popular - for the American people, things will only continue to get worse.

[raker]

07:15 PM on 09/18/2011

Restore taxes for the rich. Make corporations, those parasites that take from us and pay nothing, start paying taxes. Big ones. Stop spending billions of dollars a month occupying the Middle East. Vote Democratic. Disaster averted.

[rkmerriman]

10:14 PM on 09/18/2011

Excuse me! Voting democratic is what got us in this mess in the first place. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. If the voters have not learned any lessons from 2006 and 2008 America as we know it is doomed!

[JBaker]

12:08 AM on 09/19/2011

Republicans doubled the national debt under GW, and created a phony $3 trillion war. Under Republicans the middle-class shrank while mortality increased.

[raker]

07:36 AM on 09/19/2011

Keen analysis.

[WhoIsNoOne]

11:32 AM on 09/18/2011

Bam, looks like a slam dunk for Social Security.. Right?
the most popular changes would fix social security for ever,
and not reduce the benefits or additionally burden current
or future seniors
-Raise the Cap on contributions
-limit the benefits paid to the wealthy upon retirement (you could
probably even get rid of this one, and stick with the first)
Unfortunately, the republicans only want the pain to continue, so
it increases their chance next year.

[bobcouchman]

11:04 AM on 09/18/2011

the "hard road" seems to only be for the american people. the administration and congrwess are more than willing to donate our weaklth to foreign nations to rebuild their countries and help their poor. meanwhile the only thought in washington is to tax more for more revenue to aid these foreign countries. and what of the illegal foreigners here. the IRS was duped out of $4.2 billion for them last year alone. when does it all stop

[TedEjr]

10:57 AM on 09/18/2011

And add in to the mix, what are we in the midst of right now?

An election cycle.

Does anyone really think that anything that gets through, IF anything gets through, will be more politically/election/re-election motiviated, as opposed to real solution motivated? Yeah, there may be SOME dual purpose concepts floated. But, re-election, on BOTH sides of the aisle, will be a primary motivator.

That is why we need term limits. And to lengthen the individual term. To reduce the frequency of election cycles. And to take the lifer aspect out of Congress.

[wave06]

09:42 AM on 09/18/2011

Over 80% of Democrats support Obama and those
Democrats who are reluctant or skeptical
believe Obama has not been forceful enough
in dealing with the Obstructinist Republicans.

[WhoIsNoOne]

11:08 AM on 09/18/2011

Thanks wave, Republicans state Obama's approval
rating and say he has gone too far to the left, but I would guess
that a large percentage of it comes from people
who think he has not gone far enough.

[Icantbelieveher]

09:23 AM on 09/18/2011

When you vote republican, you vote to continue the redistribution of wealth upward.  When you allow the wealthiest, greediest people to take a 400%+ raise in the last 30 years (Since King Reagan waged his war on the middle class), that money has to come from somewhere.  It may not have hit you as hard yet, but don't think the wealthiest people in this country will be happy until they have your salary, too!  And then, there will be no one left to fight for you -- republicans will have already destroyed Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Food Stamps, or any other program that helps the people living in the poverty they create with their redistribution of wealth upward!

But that's the Christian thing to do -- amass as much money as possible for yourself and watch everyone else starve to death!

[fairplaystacy]

10:00 AM on 09/18/2011

With more power the rich and the GOP will get rid of the labor unions, the last organizations with enough funding to level the donor playing field during electoral campaigns. Then we will live in a totalitarian state. A plutocracy with suffering on a mass scale is what Americans will finally experience.

[Democrat in the South]

10:04 AM on 09/18/2011

And Americans will pay dearly and have to fight for generations to regain what they gave away to republicans in just 30 years.

[WhoIsNoOne]

11:25 AM on 09/18/2011

fanned fairplay, over the last year or so, I have read (some for the first time) a few classics (actually I listened to them, as I have a long commute)
it came as a shock to me how relevant they are in our current business
and political climate: The Jungle; 1984; Animal Farm; Oliver Twist; The Grapes of Wrath; A Tale of two cities. (also a good non-fiction : The Worst Hard Times, about the dust bowl)
Like most people I knew the basic premise of the books. I knew that The Jungle was about the bad working conditions at the turn of the century, but in reading
them, again I was truly shocked by the similarities in our country today.

[Tribal Knowledge]

11:51 AM on 09/18/2011

Nonsense.

You debase and embarrass yourself, and your argument (to the extent that you MAKE an argument).

[Icantbelieveher]

12:01 PM on 09/18/2011

When you've got no argument, you resort to name-calling.  You've done nothing to debunk what I said, you've said nothing to prove me wrong -- you just try your put-downs to try to make yourself feel educated, but it doesn't take a smart person to make your statement.  I'm not embarrassed by my knowledge -- nor the fact that I continue to educate myself.

You might try making an point in your next post -- that's what you call a discussion!

[FACTISFACT]

05:02 AM on 09/18/2011

Hard road is a better surface for kicking with balance. The hard road should have been chosen earlier.

Now, Hard Kicking on Hard Road would go fine. Just indicate when the Public would join in. There are people in every society who do not understand nice and soft language but readily understand hard kicks on their butts. Public wants it to be given as this is the time to kick very hard.

[bigmadd]

08:54 AM on 09/18/2011

Remember the hard road is not always the right road, and when one falls on the hard road the injurys are alway's worst.

[FACTISFACT]

09:40 AM on 09/18/2011

bigmadd, please read my comment I mentioned hard Road for balanced kicking and that he is very much capable to give to those illiterate racists conglomerated to wage a war with racist's political agenda, making the lives and livings of millions Americans.

With regard to your concept, I wouldn't totally disagree but if a person kicks from a imbalanced position he would get hurt.

However, thanks for your response. Take Care.

[JDZSB]

01:45 AM on 09/18/2011

Why won't anyone in Washington commit to reduce the size of the federal government through consolidation and elimination of duplication across the board as a first step to reducing the deficit? Has any of you ever heard anyone actually commit to reduce the number of federal agencies and commensurate headcount? All I have ever heard, including the recent debt limit debate, is some minimal reductions in the PLANNED INCREASES in the federal budgets. These people refuse to reduce their baseline budgets by a penny, and have never cut their baselines, thus, the government continues to grow and require more and more revenue to pay the salaries and benefits of the millions of federal employees. Couple this continuous growth in the government with the uncontrolled growth in government entitlement programs and the myriad of other social subsidy programs, and it has become an insatiable tax eating monster that even borrowing 42 cents of every dollar spent s still not appeasing it's hunger as the national debt skyrockets to record levels. Washington is out of control.

[yukidongo1]

03:21 AM on 09/18/2011

A great start, at this point, since there is still a very little time to work with the heavy hitting Social Security and Medicare budgetary/deficit costs. The other thing is, why don't they just come out with the truth that the Bush era cuts, cannot replace what the Social Security payments are requiring? Social Security is the chief thing that needs fixing, but it wouldn't be that hard to do. The problem would be a moot point if it hadn't become a slush fund for Congress and the Presidents since the 60's to steal from. And, the idea that they NEED all the doubling of duplication and triplication in the offices that require doubles and triplicates of everything, including personnel, is ridiculous. Too many agencies, personnel, and to much government spending. Not just Social Security. Wouldn't hurt to be serious about cutting real expenses that are unnecessary. BTW... I could fix The issue with Social Security...

[POpgrssve]

09:06 AM on 09/18/2011

Your post is just....IDK. Instead of listening to the droll, false drumbeat of talking points (government is too big, entitlement programs are the cause of our troubles, federal employees make to0 much), research the real causes of our financial problems. The right, with the help of neo liberals have "framed" this debt all wrong. It's by design. It's deceptive. This is not about federal agencies or "social subsidy programs." Corporations control the media (newspapers and televsion, the Congress AND the White House- doesn't matter what party it is. They help produce propaganda so that people like you and (millions others) will believe the old Ronnie "big government" lie so they can put the final nail in the coffin. What do they want? They want a completely unempowered, easily conrolled, low-wage, low-information consumer population who worship reality TV, celebrities, and Monday night football, WHO on occasion, show up every 4 years (like robots) to cast a vote for the "man" or "woman" who will finally restore "America's promise." Sound familar? The Repubs won't save you and the Democrats are too scared and spineless to be a real opposition party. My advice? Keep reading and stop watching TV--and then revise your post.

[xxx xxxx]

12:07 AM on 09/18/2011

Obama. You get 3 free kills during your presidency. I think it's time to use one.

[Hank007]

08:54 PM on 09/17/2011

Good luck cutting medicare payments to providers. You'll simply have less providers willing to take medicare, like, say, my business partner for example.

[Democrat in the South]

10:13 AM on 09/18/2011

Since seniors are the biggest users of health care, and Medicare is the bread & butter of Drs., go ahead, get out. A lot of Drs. aren't stupid enough to cut off their own noses to spite their faces....

[bobcouchman]

11:08 AM on 09/18/2011

many doctors do not accept medicade, and the same will happen with medicare. so much for the promise that you "will not have to change doctors"