While most likely voters claim they trust Democrats with the budget more than Republicans, a substantial majority actually supports GOP budget policies, according to a new poll released Monday by The Hill.
Likely voters gravitated toward the Republican proposals when they were shown the Republican and Democratic budget proposals without party labels.
Without party affiliations 55 percent of likely voters said they would prefer a plan that “does not raise taxes, cuts $5 trillion and balances the budget” which reflects the path Republican House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan has offered.
Just 28 percent went for a plan “with $1 trillion in tax hikes and 100 billion in cuts that does not balance the budget,” or that laid out by the Democratic Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray has proposed.
An even wider disparity was seen when pollsters presented likely voters with general ways to reduce the budget — 65 percent believing budget deficits should be reduced mostly by spending cuts, compared to 24 percent who saw raising taxes as the preferable way.
Yet when asked which party they trusted more on budget issues, a plurality of likely voters said they trusted Democrats more — 35 percent to Republican’s 30 percent, 36 percent were uncommitted. Another plurality also said they believed Obamacare should be repealed — with 45 percent holding that opinion, compared to 37 percent that said it should be “fully implemented,” and 14 percent who were uncommitted.
The Hill’s report noted that 40 percent of Democrats supported the more Republican contention that spending cuts, 44 percent said through tax increases, should reduce budget deficits.
Thirty-three percent of respondents were Republicans, 38 percent were Democrats, and 30 percent were labeled as “other.”
The national survey of 1,000 likely voters, conducted by Pulse Opinion Research on March 14, has a sampling error of +/- 3 percentage points.