Americans Want Government to Spend for Jobs, Send Bill to Rich

By Mike Dorning and Catherine Dodge

Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Americans want their government to create jobs through spending on public works, investments in alternative energy or skills training for the jobless.

They also want the deficit to come down. And most are ready to hand the bill to the wealthy.

A Bloomberg National Poll conducted Dec. 3-7 shows two- thirds of Americans favor taxing the rich to reduce the deficit.

Even though almost 9 of 10 respondents also say they believe the middle class will have to make financial sacrifices to achieve that goal, only a little more than one-fourth support an increase in taxes on the middle class. Fewer still back cuts in entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare or a new national consumption tax.

These long-standing contradictions in voters’ attitudes toward taxes, spending and the deficit are intensified as the U.S. grapples with the most severe economic crisis in decades, says J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co., a Des Moines, Iowa-based firm that conducted the nationwide survey. The rich have become an especially inviting target as the combination of a bank bailout and big bonuses stoke resentments, she says.

“People are hurting,” Selzer says. “They want anything that can help and not hurt them more.”

“It’s hard enough just to get by,” says poll respondent Trevor Wofsey, 32, a postal carrier in Big Pine Key, Florida. “We’re being cut at every level: There are less hours at work and they want us to pay more into medical. Food is up, gas is up.”

Obama Jobs Initiative

The findings are in tune with the job-promotion initiatives President Barack Obama announced Dec. 8, as well as the administration’s assurances it will address the deficit, and proposals from some Democratic lawmakers to raise taxes on the wealthy.

The difficulty of reconciling public demands for government action on jobs while at the same time reducing the deficit is shaping up as a major political theme ahead of the 2010 midterm elections. Obama and Democrats in Congress confront an unemployment rate that was 10 percent for November and a deficit that is forecast to be more than $1 trillion over each of the next two years.

While the public sees both unemployment and the deficit as a threat, anxiety over unemployment is higher. Eight out of 10 poll respondents rate unemployment a high risk to the economy in the next two years and 7 of 10 say the same about the deficit.

Infrastructure Spending

The poll contains some of the features Obama announced in his jobs plan. Two-thirds of Americans back boosting spending on infrastructure. Six of 10 also support more spending on alternative energy to stimulate job growth, another measure Obama announced.

“The best thing we could do is take some public money to rebuild our infrastructure and improve it,” says poll respondent Richard Kellaway, 75, a Unitarian Universalist minister who lives in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Unemployed people “could be put to work in a matter of days.”

Americans support a range of other potential new government initiatives presented as employment programs, with ideas from both parties backed by wide majorities. An across-the-board tax cut, a favorite of some Republicans, also is supported by 6 of 10 Americans.

A tax credit for businesses that hire new workers, which Obama favored as a presidential candidate and this week proposed in a limited form available only to small firms, gains backing from 7 of 10 Americans.

Skeptical About Results

Americans support the proposals even as they express doubts the federal government will help cut joblessness. A 51 percent majority say they are pessimistic about the prospects.

When it comes to the deficit, they are more distrustful: 61 percent say they are pessimistic the government will bring down the budget shortfall.

Nearly 9 out of 10 Americans say the middle class will have to make sacrifices to cut the deficit. That doesn’t mean that they are ready to embrace the idea.

“With the middle class making more sacrifices than they are already making because of what the government ran up, it’s going to eventually leave the middle class at the bottom,” says poll respondent Laisha Wright, 25, an unemployed resident of Columbus, Ohio.

The wealthy would be better able to bear the burden of more taxes, she says. “I don’t think it would be a big issue for them.”

Across Party Lines

The appeal of taxes on the wealthy crosses party lines. About half of Republicans back the idea and it is more popular among Democrats and independents.

House Democrats have proposed surtaxes on the wealthy to pay for the health-care overhaul and the decision to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan Obama announced last week.

Obama made tax increases on the wealthy a theme of his presidential campaign, promising to roll back the Bush administration’s tax cuts for families that earn more than $250,000.

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag has promised to produce a budget that will cut the long-term federal deficit, and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, a Democrat from North Dakota, is pressing for a bipartisan commission on deficit reduction.

The poll shows that an across-the-board 5 percent cut of all discretionary government spending also attracts support as a deficit-reduction measure, with 57 percent saying they would back it.

Majorities of poll respondents also say some big government programs either are not justified or could be cut. They included the $700 billion rescue of the nation’s banking system, the auto industry bailout, Iraq War funding, the $787 billion economic stimulus package and funding for the Afghanistan War.

Cuts in funding for the Medicare prescription drug program would be resisted by 71 percent.

To see methodology and exact question wording, click on the attachment tab at the top of the story.

To contact the reporters on this story: Mike Dorning in Washington at mdorning@bloomberg.net; Catherine Dodge in Washington at cdodge1@bloomberg.net