Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos. 1/27-30. Registered nationwide voters. MoE 3.1%.
Which do you think should be a higher priority
for the government: creating jobs or cutting the deficit?
| Creating jobs | Cutting deficit | Not sure |
---|
All | 60 | 34 | 6 |
---|
Women | 66 | 27 | 7 |
---|
Men | 54 | 41 | 5 |
---|
Democrat | 81 | 13 | 5 |
---|
Republican | 37 | 56 | 7 |
---|
Independent/Other | 60 | 34 | 5 |
---|
Liberal | 88 | 9 | 3 |
---|
Moderate | 69 | 26 | 6 |
---|
Conservative | 38 | 55 | 7 |
---|
Tea Party | 32 | 61 | 6 |
---|
Non TP | 67 | 28 | 5 |
---|
So it turns out the vast majority of Americans are Keynesians after all -- other than Republicans, conservatives, and tea party supporters, every single ideological and demographic group in America prioritizes job creation over deficit reduction.
You can find the full breakdown here, but regardless of race, ethnicity, income, region, age, or gender, overwhelming majorities prioritized job creation.
Independents prioritized job creation by a nearly two-to-one margin and moderates prioritized it by nearly three-to-one. A staggering 71% of eighteen to twenty-nine year olds ranked job creation ahead of deficit reduction, even though those are the people who have the most at stake in with respect to the long-term consequences of deficits.
Moral of the story: it turns out that Paul Krugman's ideas represent the political mainstream. It's the teahadists and the beltway's self-styled deficit hawks who are on the political margin. There's no appetite for austerity. Americans know the path to prosperity is economic growth, not Draconian cuts to public services.