nationaljournal | Americans of all stripes have had enough of massive Pentagon budgets and want significant cuts in defense spending, according to new survey data released on Monday.
In Republican and Democratic districts across the country, 74 percent and 80 percent of respective voters said they want less defense spending, the study found.
On average, voters indicated that they wanted a budget for fiscal 2013 that would be nearly 20 percent less than current defense spending.
With $645 billion enacted for total defense spending this year, the average voter’s preferred budget for next year, an 18 percent cut, would translate into a $116 billion savings—money lawmakers trying to balance the budget could sorely use.
The study’s results will disappoint defense hawks and industry officials fighting against spending cuts, especially those claiming to protect defense jobs in their districts.
Voters participated in an April survey that first presented and explained competing arguments for higher or lower defense spending. Some results of that survey have previously been released. But the authors dived into a deeper examination of party differences and found no statistically significant separation of attitudes on defense spending cuts between Republicans and Democrats. Moreover, voters in districts with or without defense industry jobs overwhelmingly said they want the federal government to spend less.
“The idea that Americans’ would want to keep total defense spending up so as to preserve local jobs is not supported by the data,” said Steven Kull, director of the Program for Public Consultation, which conducted the survey with the Stimson Center and the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative journalism group.
In Republican and Democratic districts across the country, 74 percent and 80 percent of respective voters said they want less defense spending, the study found.
On average, voters indicated that they wanted a budget for fiscal 2013 that would be nearly 20 percent less than current defense spending.
With $645 billion enacted for total defense spending this year, the average voter’s preferred budget for next year, an 18 percent cut, would translate into a $116 billion savings—money lawmakers trying to balance the budget could sorely use.
The study’s results will disappoint defense hawks and industry officials fighting against spending cuts, especially those claiming to protect defense jobs in their districts.
Voters participated in an April survey that first presented and explained competing arguments for higher or lower defense spending. Some results of that survey have previously been released. But the authors dived into a deeper examination of party differences and found no statistically significant separation of attitudes on defense spending cuts between Republicans and Democrats. Moreover, voters in districts with or without defense industry jobs overwhelmingly said they want the federal government to spend less.
“The idea that Americans’ would want to keep total defense spending up so as to preserve local jobs is not supported by the data,” said Steven Kull, director of the Program for Public Consultation, which conducted the survey with the Stimson Center and the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative journalism group.
19 comments:
"study finds voters overwhelmingly want big defense spending cuts..."
These voters are, of course, primarily folks whose families have never been bombed or shot at.
Try conducting the same study in London, Berlin or Hiroshima...
But that's just it BD, THIS IS NOT any of those crowded, ancient, resource-deprived places, so, the irrational squandering of wealth on warsocialist excess - hierarchical, food-powered, make-work for otherwise useless eaters - is an insufferable burden on those remaining productively employed citizens.
Time to get all those IQ-75 l00z3rs in uniform, wasting energy and taxpayer revenues manning the military, police, and prison industrial complexes out of those uniforms and into some real manual labor work clothes out in a cotton field somewhere....,
Why stop at IQ-75? I say all the way up to IQ-120.
Come now, give BD his due for convenient catch-all categorizations...,
Genuine question (kwestin?)-- who are the productively employed citizens? I'm more and more convinced that essentially nobody (farmers, ranchers, a tiny % of scientists and engineers, construction workers excepted) is "productively employed."
Are the bankers really stealing from us collectively, or are they showering us with material wealth through their sorcery of the mass money delusion?
They are showering us with the excess wealth left over from extracted oil.
Agreed. There is no doubt that the extracted wealth is not distributed equitably or meritoriously, but it sure looks like we "productive citizens" enjoy grossly more than our fair share largely due to the financial system. I mean, BD doesn't do shit except collect checks for imaginary money in the bank and troll obscure blogs, but most of us are much closer to him than a rancher IMO.
I'm more and more convinced that essentially nobody (farmers, ranchers,
a tiny % of scientists and engineers, construction workers excepted) is
"productively employed."
Quite right.
Are the bankers really stealing from us collectively?
The bankers are stealing from both the productive and the hierarchical, food-powered, make-work masses.
For the longest I've wondered why the collective "it" permits this parasitism, i.e., what evolutionary purpose does it serve?
I thought that you'd see from CNu's various postings that ultimately, yes, we do enjoy grossly more than our fair share. That comes from the collaboration between all components of the warsocialist system.
And, yes, I was closer to BD than a rancher myself. Which is the reason I bought an old house on a small bit of acreage and am growing a small orchard (forest garden), a kitchen garden, chickens, and bees. Pigs and goats are going to be my next addition as I expand the kitchen and forest gardens.
Fairness....,
What is this world of you humans to the stars above? What do they think of your tiny planet, full of mad juxtaposition, happenstance, and the endless struggling of your deeply crazed civilizations? These humans are not bound together by will, or faith, or communal ambition, but instead by some automatic capacity of their billions to be oblivious to life's tragedies and unfairness in their quest for happiness. Again and again these humans strive for a little happiness as if it were as natural to them as sleep, hunger, warmth, or fear of the cold.
Ancient priest/pushers of dopamine hegemony rule these humans body and soul bishes!!!
Everything else is merely conversation....,
The grim irony here is that The Defense Industry is pretty much the only tangible industry America has left. The money 'saved' from defense cuts will simply go to Wall Street debt holders who will piss it away on one Ponzi scheme or another.
It's certainly the top dog there in Palmdale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmdale,_California#Largest_employers.5B42.5D
We believe in nothing Lebowski!
http://youtu.be/qLs6gVCGJ5w
lol, it appears that 14 others are hip to the reference DD...,
Well, just in the Seattle area you have Boeing *COMMERCIAL* airplanes, Kenworth Trucks, PACCAR railroad cars, massive container shipping, Adobe, Microsoft, Amazon and Costco headquarters. Zillions of folks productively employed. And, so far this summer, there has been a grand total of 58 minutes during which the local temperature has been above 80 degF....(you may now return to swiping your EBT's)
I was gong to post this in my own blog, but it speaks to this, and so manotger issues addressed at Sub-U, I figured I'd give it to you my friend.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/02/magazine/the-he-hormone.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
Not sure if that's from auto correct or Bulleit Bourbon...
They could all become ministers. I had the unfortunate experience of attending a funeral yesterday for a young man who attended college and graduated with my son in 2009. (http://www.lvrj.com/news/man-killed-in-boulder-highway-accident-identified-161795795.html) The minister took the opportunity during the eulogy to call people to "da lord," then announced later at the gravesite that "more than 60 people came to the lord." What a racket!
Dude. Now that androgel and topical testosterone is a common and inexpensive product, you should expect to see more mood swung males out and about on the highways and byways. That isht right thurr is no joke whatsoever.
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