Strong Opposition to Cuts and Privatization

A recent Pew pollshows that a majority of Americans say that deficit reduction should be a top priority this year, yet they are very wary of any cuts to the entitlement programs that make up much of the federal government's spending. Nearly two-thirdsare against changes to Social Security and Medicare, and according to a recent CNN poll, 87% believe that funding for those programs should either be increased or remain unchanged.

Opposition to cutting funding for Social Security and Medicare is so strong that Americans are far more willing to see cuts in defense spending, even though almost two-thirdsbelieve that military spending should be increased or kept at current levels. When a CBS/NY Times pollforced respondents to choose between cutting the military, Social Security and Medicare, 55% chose to cut military spending, with just 21% and 13% opting to cut Medicare and Social Security, respectively.

Privatization is also not seen as a viable option for reducing entitlement spending, as a March 2010 Bloomberg surveyfound that the public rejected privatizing Social Security and Medicare by a 26-point margin. A Pew pollfrom last September found a similar level of opposition to turning Medicare into a voucher program (33% favor / 52% oppose).

The strong resistance to cutting funding for these two programs might encourage some to set their sights on Medicaid as a source of savings. But recent polling shows that this program is also not a target for the public. Three-quarters of Americanssay that funding for Medicaid should either be increased or kept the same, and a January CNN pollfound that 70% say that it is more important to protect the program from significant cuts than to cut its funding for deficit reduction.

Openness to Some Entitlement Reforms

Given such high levels of opposition, cutting funding for any of these programs carries a great deal of risk, but polling does reveal a couple entitlement reforms that the public is less averse to.

For one, the public supports increasing taxes on the wealthy as a way to help fund these programs. This is seen in the latest Kaiser poll,which finds that 58% of Americans want to keep the part of the new healthcare law that increases Medicare taxes for upper income Americans. A March ABC/News Washington Post pollshows  similar results on Social Security, with 53% of respondents in favor of removing the $107,000 limit and applying Social Security taxes to all levels of income.

Similarly, while the public claims to prefer spending cuts to tax increases generally, the reverse is true for entitlement programs. When respondents in the January CBS/NY Times pollwere asked whether they would prefer a reduction in Medicare benefits or higher Medicare taxes, they favored the latter by an overwhelming 40-point margin (64% to 24%). When the same question was posed for Social Security, the results were nearly identical.

The ABC/Washington Post pollalso found that opposition to a number of Social Security cost-control measures had declined over the past six years, with the public now split on reducing cost of living increases (45% support / 48% oppose) and 46% supporting a reduction in benefits for those who retire early, a 10-point increase from 2005.

Current Standing of the Parties on Handling Entitlements and the Deficit

As the parties move into a debate over entitlement reform in the coming months, neither can claim a clear upper-hand in the debate at the moment. Though Kaiserfinds that Democrats hold sizeable advantages over Republicans on who the public trusts to handle Medicare (44% Democrats / 30% Republicans) and Social Security (44% Democrats / 29% Republicans), the percentage preferring them falls well short of a majority. Meanwhile, in addition to trailing the Democrats on Social Security and Medicare, Republicans have seen their pre-election advantage on  handling the deficit evaporate, as the March AP/GfK pollnow finds the public split on which party they trust more on the issue.