Issues
Voters Want State Government Reform
Polling in 10 states shows that Americans want politicians to cut spending and reduce public employee benefits before they raise taxes.
Americans believe that bold action to restrict spending is necessary to stabilize the finances of state government.
Last month, in a wide-ranging national survey of 1,000 randomly selected, registered voters, and in 10 polls in individual states each with 400 respondents, my polling company found that voters strongly favor measures to pare the compensation of current and future public employees. They strongly oppose higher taxes.
Specifically, over three-quarters (78%) say their state faced a budget crisis this year, and 68% say that the crisis was resolved with spending cuts. Overwhelmingly they blame politicians for creating and exacerbating the problems: 48% say “elected state officials made careless and self-serving decisions,” while only 6% say “state governments did not tax enough.”
The top priorities for resolving current fiscal issues are to cut government spending (47%) and to ask for greater sacrifice from current public employees, by having them contribute more towards their benefits (31%). By almost two-to-one, they think that current public employees should have to contribute more toward their pension benefits because of budget problems.
