A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll indicates that fewer than 25% of Americans are in support of budget cuts that impact Social Security or Medicare, even though such cuts would work toward combating the country’s deficit.
Other poll results show the economic outlook for 2011 is bleak, but President Obama is handling the economy well, according to a WSJ article titled “Poll Shows Budget-Cuts Dilemma.”
Across age groups and ideologies, Americans said it was “unacceptable” to make significant cuts in entitlement programs in order to reduce the deficit, the poll results showed. More than 60% of Americans polled supported reducing Social Security and Medicare for the wealthy population and more than half were in favor of adjusting the retirement age to 69 by 2075; up from age 66 today and 67 in 2027.
Additionally, a majority supported two measures that lawmakers could use to boost the financial situation of the main entitlement programs.
“Depending on how they are structured, those two changes could eliminate as much as 60% of Social Security’s underfunding,” the WSJ cited experts as saying.
The pollsters who conducted the survey told the WSJ that “the poll raises warning signs for anyone proposing cuts to the three main entitlement programs, including Medicaid, that provide health and retirement benefits to seniors and the poor. The programs, which already make up 41% of federal spending, are expected to balloon in coming years.”
Read the full Wall Street Journal report.
Written by Elizabeth Ecker
