(I am a rare diarist/commenter for Kos, but being on the rec and community lists on several of those rare occasions makes me feel welcome.)
As a subject of the Nielsen Ratings agency, I was contacted by Scarborough Research, a Nielsen subsidy, in December with an invitation to join a new kind of policy think-tank to advise Congress.
Before this gets too bogged down in explanation, let me give you some foreshadowing: I’ll be getting to the results of the first major work session on the 2017 Budget Proposal below. There are some fascinating insights, but I feel this new approach deserves an explanation and will be appreciated by the wonkier members of the Kos community. Feel free to skip to the summary of the report below if you just want to see the differences in Americans’ approach to the budget.
A true national think-tank by internet
This think-tank, Voice of the People, is organized and compiled by the University of Maryland from demographic samples supplied by Scarborough to achieve representative balance in the sample and a margin of error of a little over 1%.
This national group collectively is called The Citizen Cabinet. The Citizen Cabinet is a static group used again and again for input on a variety of topics. The current Cabinet stands at around 7,000 participants, with plans to expand this scientifically selected representative sample to 100,000 members. By design, all members submit their work anonymously, but with controls.
The goal of the project is to use modern technology to provide advisory positions to Congress that reflect the true input from the American public. In addition, the technology can be used to isolate inputs geographically by creating State Citizen Cabinets reflecting the same representational diversity.
The advisors and board for the project include bi-partisan representation of former Governors, Senators, Congressmen, industry, and academia. It is funded primarily by The Circle Foundation, The Democracy Fund, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Hewlett Foundation, and individual donors.
How it works
Voice of the People realized that simple surveys are both too misleading and too limited to provide accurate feedback to Congress on detailed issues. For example, asking “Do you think we should raise taxes? Yes or No?” results in parroting from whatever your partisan position may be. In addition, surveys generally do not make an attempt to educate you on the issues, and just collect answers based on your current understanding.
In short, surveys capture current opinions. They don’t ask you to provide an informed solution to a given problem.
Instead, the Citizen Cabinet surveys provide detailed backgrounds and explanations of problems to provide nuance, and ask the Citizen Cabinet members to use interactive tools to solve the issue or problem (as compared to just saying “yes” or “no”), showing the outcome of their decisions to allow them the opportunity to adjust their positions as they learn.
In the Budget Report below, for example, VOP explained that Obama’s 2017 proposal would have a discretionary budget that exceeded the caps for both defense and non-defense funding, resulting in statutory budget sequestration if not solved by budget cuts and/or increases in revenue. It also explained the outcome of that sequestration — completely unselective cuts that do not take priorities into account.
This level of detail was provided for each proposal for revenue and spending as well, and for any question, you can Google away for more information as you complete the survey.
For each proposed action, members were asked to rate their reactions to a pair of general policy statements most would recognize as being partisan, from each side of the fence. For example, we were provided with two arguments — One arguing that Government is a problem, the other arguing that Government is a valuable tool — and asked to rate each argument as very convincing, somewhat convincing, somewhat unconvincing, or very unconvincing.
These arguments help VOP understand and compile priorities for different items or proposals.
Then, with interactive tools, the members were asked to adjust revenue by a number of proposed methods, to adjust spending by a number of methods, and were shown the outcome of their decisions. As one completed the survey, a running total of deficit reduction appeared.
2017 Budget Proposal Results
Voice of the People this month provided its report on the 2017 Budget Proposal work session with enlightening results. (.pdf) This report is quite detailed, but you can scroll to find the graphs for quick information.
This report has been provided to the US Congress.
First: Results by Candidate Support
I’m sure this is of most interest for those doing the quick browse rather than the detailed read. It is election season, after all.
The sample of the Citizen Cabinet provided enough detail to analyze the decisions by supporters of six Democratic and GOP candidates. See p. 38 for summary, and details on p. 56-57.
Both Democrat’s supporters slashed the deficit far more than Republicans.
Democrats were far more open to revenue increases, particularly through sin-taxes and increasing taxes for the very wealthy and corporations, while cutting the defense budget and increasing spending on education, renewable energy, and the environment.
It’s also notable that no GOP candidate’s supporters were willing to increase any part of the defense budget over Obama’s proposal. Some made relatively minor cuts, some left it alone, but none were for increasing it. Also, no GOP candidate’s supporters were willing to increase spending on any non-defense line item, with the sole exception of a $1 billion increase for Veterans’ benefits by Ted Cruz supporters.
Remember: These are proposed by supporters of the candidates, not necessarily by statements or proposals by the candidates themselves. For many of the specific items asked of the Citizen Cabinet, there have been no policy statements made by the candidates. However, this provides some insight into the philosophies and reasons why different citizens support different candidates.
Sanders supporters reduced the deficit by the greatest amount — $402 billion. They made the deepest cuts to defense of any group, while adding more revenue than others. Sanders’ people were more open to cutting general defense operations, by over $100 billion more than Clinton supporters, and were more willing to reduce our nuclear weapons budget.
In the non-defense budget, Sanders and Clinton supporters were mostly close to agreement in areas of expenditures and cuts. Sanders supporters offered deeper cuts to corporate agriculture subsidies, Federal law enforcement, Homeland Security, and notably deeper cuts to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Of note, Sanders supporters were the only group to offer cuts to Homeland Security — all other candidate groups left the Obama proposal intact.
In expenditure increases, Sanders supporters outpaced Clinton supporters in K-12 education, special education, job training, science funding, highway funding, subsidies to small farmers, elderly housing, and Veterans’ benefits.
The net reduction in non-defense items slightly outpaced Clinton supporters at $6.5 billion.
Clinton supporters were No. 2 in overall budget reduction at $285 billion, gained mostly through somewhat smaller cuts to defense — $38 billion compared to Sanders’ $141 billion — but with comparable increases in revenue.
In the non-defense budget, Clinton supporters made less pronounced cuts in corporate agriculture subsidies and Iraq/Afghanistan operations than Sanders supporters, and included a $1 billion dollar reduction in the space program.
For spending increases, Clinton supporters offered smaller increases to many programs promoted by the Sanders side, but showed more support for job training, alternative energy, higher education, and environmental protection than Obama’s proposal.
Net reduction for the non-defense budget was comparable to Sanders supporters at $5 billion.
Trump supporters led the GOP pack in suggested deficit reduction. His followers offered $51 billion in non-defense cuts, $7 billion in defense cuts, and $80 billion in new revenue for a net reduction of $128 billion.
Trump supporters made a mild $7 billion cut to the defense budget by reducing operations and intelligence funding.
In non-defense, they cut $51 billion in small chunks from nearly every line item, with deeper cuts to elderly housing, higher education, medical research, and developmental assistance.
Cruz supporters seemed to toe the party line of cut spending/cut taxes the tightest, offering the deepest cuts to non-defense spending, and actually reducing revenue at the same time for a net reduction of $105 billion.
In military spending, Cruz supporters were willing to reduce defense intelligence by $500 million, and otherwise accepted Obama’s proposal.
In non-defense spending, however, Cruz supporters showed outright hostility for nearly every item, more than doubling the cuts proposed by Trump’s supporters — $114 to $51 billion. The only items not cut were subsidies to small farmers, Iraq and Afghanistan operations, and Homeland Security.
Particular hostility was reserved for medical research, land management, K-12 education, higher education, elderly housing, and mass transit.
Again, the only GOP increase to non-defense spending came from Cruz supporters, with a $1 billion increase to Veterans’ benefits.
Cruz supporters were also the only group to reduce revenue.
Rubio supporters offered the least reduction of any tracked candidate — $80 billion — through small spending cuts and revenue increases.
In defense spending, Rubio supporters accepted Obama’s proposal as-is, offering no increases or decreases.
In non-defense, Rubio supporters offered the mildest GOP cuts at $38 billion by cutting a few billion from several line items with no apparent targeting.
Finally, Carson supporters offered $101 billion in overall reduction, including $45 billion in non-defense cuts, $8 billion in defense cuts, and $48 billion in new revenue.
Carson supporters offered similar military cuts to Trump’s group, with the addition of a $1 billion reduction in nuclear weapons. Carson supporters were the only GOP group to reduce nuclear weaponry by any amount.
Reductions in non-defense spending came in third for GOP supporters, with a net reduction of $45.2 billion, with cuts on line-items very similar to Trump supporters.
Second: Finding Common Ground
The nature of this new method allows us not only to find out who believes what, but specific areas where we all agree.
For example, as far as non-defense spending goes, everyone agrees that corporate agriculture subsidies are too high, and by comparable amounts. Every candidate group cut them, from at least $3.5 billion (Carson) to $7 billion (Cruz) with Sanders and Clinton supporters at $5 billion and $4 billion, respectively.
When you move away from candidate groups to look at just Democratic and Republican proposals, and what might be acceptable to them, we find even more common ground.
Many policy proposals are overwhelmingly supported by Democrats and by more than half of Republicans, making them suitable to the majority of voters overall.
On new revenue, for instance, 75% of us think the rich are not paying their fair share of taxes. We agree that taxes should be raised by 5% for people with incomes over $200K; however, we disagree that taxes should be increased above that for people making over a million. Still, there is that common ground of $200K.
75% of us also propose increasing the tax on carried interest and a fee on uninsured debt for large financial institutions. 66% of us agree that there should be an increase in taxes for capital gains and dividends, with half of the GOP agreeing. Most of us think alcohol taxes should be increased by .25/drink, with half the GOP on board.
We also find where we have agreement of the majority — including Democrats and independents — without GOP support. The majority of Citizen Cabinet members, but less than half of GOP subjects, agree we should increase revenue from taxes on carbon, sugary drinks, financial transactions, and an increase in corporate income taxes.
We also learn, in general, that Independents are more willing to reduce spending in all areas — defense and non-defense alike — but are also far more willing than the GOP to consider new revenue. They may cut more than Democrats wish, but we can find common ground on revenue sources, something the GOP dogmatically avoids.
Third: State Citizen Cabinets
The report included samplings of subgroups also scientifically selected to represent various state voting populations, including NY, TX, OK, CA, MD, and OH, all at the same level of detail as the national Citizen Cabinet.
Conclusion
This next step in policy technology offers not only a view of voters, but will actually let voters advise Washington and state governments, in far greater detail than simple surveys or focus groups.
Once expanded, the Citizen Cabinet with 100,000 scientifically chosen members will be the largest stable survey group, able to provide informed advice to government in more detail than ever before. And along with providing that advice to government, it will give us insight beyond partisan rhetoric to show what is important to Americans, and how we can agree to achieve those goals.
Learn more about Voice of the People at their website. You can even take a sample survey to show you how it all works, and how it is different from simple surveys. Future reports (one is forthcoming on details of military spending alone) will be published on there under “Our Work,” along with with progress reports for the growing VOP project as a whole.
Enjoy.
