Citizens budget better than politicians

[bean fidhleir]

By Alan F. Kay, PhD
© 2005, (fair use with attribution and copy to authors)
May 5, 2005

ATI #13 survey, The Peace Dividend as the Public Sees It, as we will see, began the propulsion of public-interest polling to a new level. First some background. The nine presidents successively in office during the 42 Cold War years 1947-1989, justified large U.S. military budgets, way above pre-WWII levels, as necessary to "deal with," "stave off," "prevail over," "confront," or "deter" the Soviet threat. Based on these justifications, the nine spent in total over a trillion dollars in the anti-Soviet effort. Following their rhetoric and their actions, when the Cold War ended, much of the subsequent Fiscal Year 1991 (FY 91) military budget would have had to be cut back as no longer needed. In early 1990, this cut was labeled "the peace dividend."

Ignoring this logic, President George H. W. Bush was asking for a military budget of $300 billion essentially unchanged from the previous year. Discussion of a peace dividend rapidly died. Both Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger and his boss made it clear: "The peace dividend is peace," period.

Survey #13 was designed to get the public's view on the military budget, without using the possibly biased phrase, "peace dividend" and without asymmetry in the question of whether the military budget should be increased, cut, or kept the same. Those who wanted to cut or increase the military budget were asked, "By how much?" Those "not sure" were prompted with, "If you had to choose between increasing or decreasing, which would you choose?" The result was 69% of the public favored some cut. Their cuts averaged $78.2 billion. For nearly 30% of the public, the desired cut was more than $100 billion. By contrast, the average increase by the 25% wanting an increase was $54.4 billion. Netting, or averaging together, all cuts as positive and all increases as negative made clear that Americans wanted to cut the defense budget by a grand average of $40.4 billion. The median of the whole sample was an almost identical cut, $40.0 billion. However measured, it seems fair to say that the people's collective idea of an appropriate peace dividend was about $40 billion.

The survey, to be realistic, had to go into the federal budget in greater detail than any previous opinion poll. Those wanting a cut in the military budget were asked for what their cut should be used, (1) reducing the deficit, (2) reducing taxes, (3) increasing spending or some combination. Each one allocated his/her cut among the three alternatives and the interviewer made sure that the allocation added up to the amount of the cut. Those wanting an increase in the military budget were similarly asked how they would make up this increase in the military budget by increases in (1) the deficit or (2) taxes, or by cuts in (3) spending or some combination. Respondents were next asked to allocate their own chosen amounts for spending cuts or increases among a selection of 16 budget items, ranked in order of support in Table 1. Each respondent who gave an amount in billions by which federal taxes should be increased was told in one question how much on average their own taxes would then be increased followed by, "Are you willing to have your own taxes rise that much?" Remarkably, 75% said, yes, willingly. Surprise for politicians? They tend to believe that a majority of constituents would never voluntarily be willing to increase taxes.

http://www.alanfkay.com/polling_critic_archives/49_people_prioritize_budgets.shtml