Republicans, prodded by their tea party right wing and their own partisan prejudice about what “Americans” want, are promising to slash spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in their next big round of budget talks. But a broad new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans (77 percent) in all age groups and ideologies oppose significant cuts in these core programs – while just 22 percent approve of such cuts.
In fact, even two out of three tea party advocates oppose significant cuts in Social Security, the poll shows.
These are hardly the only findings that contradict the propaganda that Republicans push to justify and rationalize their approach to dealing with debt reduction (accumulated mainly by past Republican presidents) and their antipathy for the policies advocated by President Obama and Democrats.
Among other results, the poll showed substantial support for two specific, incremental changes in Social Security that experts say would address around 60 percent of the long-term financial problems with Social Security. One would gradually increase the age for full benefits from 66 to 69 years by 2075. The other would reduce Social Security and Medicare payments to wealthy Americans.
As for Medicare specifically, just 18 percent of Americans thought cuts to Medicare were needed to “significantly reduce” the federal budget deficit, versus 54 percent who said such cuts were not needed for deficit reduction.