Only 29% of conservatives support cuts to Medicare or Medicaid to reduce deficit.

[sasha031]

Poll: Best way to fight deficits: Raise taxes on the rich

WASHINGTON — Alarmed by rising national debt and increasingly downbeat about their country's course, Americans are clear about how they want to attack the government's runway budget deficits: raise taxes on the wealthy and keep hands off of Medicare and Medicaid.

At the same time, they say that the government should not raise the legal debt ceiling, which the government must do soon to borrow more money, despite warnings that failing to do so would force the government into default, credit markets into turmoil and the economy into a tailspin.

Those are among the findings of a national McClatchy-Marist poll taking the country's pulse just as President Barack Obama and Congress launch what could be a multi-year debate on the role of government and how to finance it.

Obama heads to northern Virginia on Tuesday and California on Wednesday to pitch his long-term budget proposals, as lawmakers from Congress are taking a spring recess, with most in their home districts.



Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/04/18/112386/poll-best-way-to-fight-deficits.html#ixzz1JyrpKKuJ

[no_hypocrisy]

1. A minority within a minority making changes for the rest of us.

Hell, no!

[Vincardog]

2. raise taxes on the wealthy and keep hands off of Medicare and Medicaid. Raise the limit on SSI and

cut the obscene MILITARY budget in half.
PROBLEM SOLVED

[Egalitariat]

3. Nobody is really interested in cutting the national debt. We have won the linguistic battle on this

one, though. Everybody's focused on "deficit" and not on the national debt. Even if we cut the deficit in half, the debt still gets $500 billion bigger each year.

We'll never proactively make a meaningful dent in the the national debt. It will take the bond markets forcing it upon us, and the bond markets need us too much to do that.