Shockingly, America doesn't hate Elmo
(Photo: Richard Termine/CPB)
You might of heard about the amusing CNN poll showing that most Americans don't really have a firm grasp of the details federal budget. For example, the median poll respondent thought the Corporation for Public Broadcasting gets 5% of the federal budget, which would translate to a whopping $178 billion. Their actual funding is $420 million, so the public has a 424-fold overestimate of what the real amount is.
Even though the public did understand that things like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are bigger-ticket items, it's still amusing that they were off by so much when it comes to the CPB. But even more amusing is this, considering the GOP push for austerity: despite thinking that CPB gets 5% of the federal budget, 53% of Americans want to either keep its funding level the same or increase it. 19% want to decrease it a little, 11% want to decrease it a lot, and just 16% want to eliminate it entirely. (The GOP sided with the 11% who want to decrease it a lot, proposing to cut $86 million and barring it from funding any NPR station.)
At some point, both the public and politicians are going to have to accept the fact that repealing all of the Bush tax cuts needs to be on the table if we want to be serious about long-term fiscal stability. But I wouldn't bet on that polling well either.