Democrat’s lowest ranking policy goal for the incoming Trump administration is the strengthening of the U.S. military, a recent Pew Research Center poll on American’s public policy priorities found.
The poll found only 25% of surveyed Democrats said that strengthening the military should be a top public policy goal of the administration. Republicans conversely said by a 2/3 majority that the military should be a top item of the new administration and congress.
President Trump and the Republican led Congress have indicated they will pursue an aggressive investiture in the U.S. military budget cycle. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry echoed his frustration with the partisan politics of military budgets in a Monday op-ed saying, “funding national security, which used to be a bipartisan priority, has become part of the political gamesmanship that so frustrates the American people.”
Trump similarly pledged in his inaugural address to rebuild the “depleted” U.S. military. Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley echoed this sentiment in March testimony before Congress saying that the U.S. Army is “not at a level that is appropriate for what the American people would expect to defend them.”
The only issue more divisive in poll between members of both political parties was the subject of climate change and environmental protection. How the government should address welfare programs and immigration were similar wedge issues between Americans.
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