Gallup's arbitrary titles: Preferred Fix: 50% want deficit reduced mostly/only with spending cuts

[Mass]

Title on Gallup's homepage

Preferred Fix: 50% want deficit reduced mostly/only with spending cuts

Numbers

http://www.gallup.com/poll/148472/Deficit-Americans-Prefer-Spending-Cuts-Open-Tax-Hikes.aspx

...

So, basically, a huge majority of people, including Republicans, are open to tax hikes (80 % of people polled, 68 % of republicans), but Gallup arbitrary grouping makes it look as if people did not want any tax hikes. No wonder the GOP feels so confident with allies like that.

[woolldog]

1. yeah that's a misleading title. nt

[CarolinaIndependent]

2. what does nt mean?

I see that a lot here.

[vroomvroom]

3. nt = No Text

Meaning there is no message body text...one should just read the Subject heading and not bother clicking it because there is nothing else to read.

[Mass]

4. Well, what a surprise. Rasmussen plays with the numbers as well

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/questions/pt_survey_questions/july_2011/questions_debt_ceiling_july_12_13_2011

1* How closely have you followed news stories about the raising the debt ceiling?
2* As part of legislation to raise the debt ceiling, should congress and the president raise taxes?

...

Yep, because people offer tax hikes for everybody as a solution :sarcasm:. No surprise, 55 % of people answer NO, because, in the way the question is phrased, the logical answer is NO. No surprise: poor people say NO, because how could they live with more taxes and less revenues. But this question is definitively not on the table.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/taxes/july_2011/55_oppose_tax_hike_in_debt_ceiling_deal

[Igel]

5. The poll looks skewed.

The dishonesty is based on omission. Only 20% rule out tax increases, so 80% are open to some tax increases, even if 30% would only raise taxes to account for a small amount of the total of the deficit reduction.

Only 4% rule out spending cuts, and only 7% would allow small spending cuts to account for much of the total.

That's skewed against tax increases and towards spending decreases.

"80% want to balance the budget through the use of spending cuts, and only 20% through the use of tax cuts" is an even more atrocious representation. Both sides are spinning furiously.

Now, we can wonder what "tax increase" means, since a lot of reduced taxes are called by many "expenses." We can wonder what "spending cuts" means.

I mean, the HCRA polling was a zoo and subject to the same kind of misrepresentation. A clear majority wanted a public option. There was no clear, accepted definition of "public option" in the poll or in the press, and when follow-up polled the population split in dozens of ways. But the spin from one side was that the clear majority wanted "the" public option--which falsely said the poll showed majority support for a single specific public option. Meanwhile, the other side pointed to the very much minority support for the specific public option as actually proposed and incorrectly said it showed that there was little public support for "a" public option. (D) revelled in pointing out the (R)s' disingenuousness, and vice-versa.

But that's what happens when you have a rainbow of colors and billions of shades of gray and you only have a black marker for a 5" x 6" piece of whiteboard. The Mona Lisa becomes a smiley face.