Overview

Public concern over the debt and deficit, already extensive, is only likely to increase as the so-called “fiscal cliff” approaches at the end of the year. Yet among a dozen specific options for reducing the debt and deficit, only two win majority approval from the public – raising taxes on annual incomes over $250,000 (64% approve) and limiting corporate tax deductions (58%).

A new national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Oct. 4-7, among 1,511 adults, including 1,201 registered voters, finds that cuts in education spending are particularly unpopular. Fully 75% disapprove of reducing federal education funding and 61% oppose cuts in funding for student loans.

Majorities also oppose reducing military defense spending (56%) and funding for scientific research (54%). Opinion is divided over reducing funding to help low-income Americans (50% disapprove vs. 43% approve).

There also is resistance to making changes in Social Security and Medicare to reduce the debt and deficit: 57% oppose raising the amount Medicare recipients contribute to their health care, while 56% disapprove of gradually raising the Social Security retirement age. About as many disapprove (47%) as approve (49%) of reducing Medicare benefits for higher-income seniors.

And the public is split over limiting tax deductions for mortgage interest as a way to reduce the national debt: 47% approve and 44% disapprove of this proposal.

Obama, Romney Voters Far Apart

The political divide over most of these proposals is substantial. The biggest differences between voters who favor Barack Obama and those who support Mitt Romney are over raising taxes on incomes over $250,000 and reducing military defense spending. Fully 84% of registered voters who support Obama approve of raising taxes on annual incomes above $250,000, compared with 41% of Romney voters.

Most Obama voters (58%) favor cutting military defense spending to reduce the debt and deficit; an even higher percentage of Romney voters (82%) oppose defense cuts.

While 62% of Obama supporters approve of raising taxes on investment income to reduce the debt and deficit, an identical percentage of Romney voters (62%) disapprove of increasing investment taxes.

Similarly, while 58% of Romney supporters favor cuts in federal programs that aid lower-income Americans, 68% of Obama voters oppose reductions in programs that aid the poor.

Among the 12 items tested, there is only one – limiting tax deductions for large corporations – that wins support from majorities of both Obama voters (69%) and Romney voters (57%).

The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted October 4-7, 2012, among a national sample of 1,511 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (906 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 605 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 291 who had no landline telephone). Data collection was managed by Princeton Survey Research Associates International and conducted by interviewers at Princeton Data Source. A combination of landline and cell phone random digit dial samples were used; both samples were provided by Survey Sampling International. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. Respondents in the landline sample were selected by randomly asking for the youngest adult male or female who is now at home. Interviews in the cell sample were conducted with the person who answered the phone, if that person was an adult 18 years of age or older. For detailed information about our survey methodology, see https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/politics/methodology/

The combined landline and cell phone sample are weighted using an iterative technique that matches gender, age, education, race, Hispanic origin and nativity and region to parameters from the March 2011 Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey and population density to parameters from the 2010 Decennial Census. The sample also is weighted to match current patterns of telephone status and relative usage of landline and cell phones (for those with both), based on extrapolations from the 2011 National Health Interview Survey. The weighting procedure also accounts for the fact that respondents with both landline and cell phones have a greater probability of being included in the combined sample and adjusts for household size among respondents with a landline phone. Sampling errors and statistical tests of significance take into account the effect of weighting. The following table shows the unweighted sample sizes and the error attributable to sampling that would be expected at the 95% level of confidence for different groups in the survey:

Sample sizes and sampling errors for other subgroups are available upon request.

In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.

Sample Composition Analysis

The following table shows the profile of all adults interviewed, compared with population parameters from government surveys, as well as the profile of registered and likely voters interviewed.