Voters Divided As to Whether Obama Budget Will Help or Hurt Economy

Courtesy of Rasmussen Reports

Voters are evenly divided over whether President Obama’s proposed $3.6 trillion budget will help or hurt the economy.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 42% believe it will help the economy while 43% say it will hurt.

The data, combined with two earlier surveys tracking the topic, shows that opinion on both sides of the debate are fairly entrenched. The data also indicates that proposals for health care reform are likely to be the central front in the budgetary debate.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates also available on Twitter.

Forty-percent (40%) of voters have a favorable opinion of the president’s budget while 46% have a unfavorable view. Those numbers have barely budged from surveys conducted in the first week of March and in mid-March. In all three surveys, the number with an unfavorable opinion of the budget has been at 45% or 46%. The number offering a positive review of the budget was a few points higher in mid-March.

The number who say Obama’s budget will help the economy has stayed between 42% and 44% in each survey. The number who believe it will hurt has increased a bit over the course of the month.

If one of the president’s priorities had to be scaled back to reduce the deficit, 34% would cut back on health care reform, 29% would cut development of new sources of energy, and 20% would cut his plans for education. However, there is a huge partisan gap on this point. For Democrats, health care reform is the last place they’d cut back. For Republicans and those not affiliated with either major party, health care is the first place they’d cut.

These results are consistent with earlier data showing that Democrats consider health care the top budget priority while Republicans and unaffiliateds place a higher value on deficit reduction. It’s a huge challenge since 63% agree with the president’s assertion that “we must make it a priority to give every single American quality affordable health care.”

Three-out-of-four voters (77%) remain concerned that Obama’s plan will generate too much government spending.

Two-thirds (66%) fear that the president will have to raise taxes on those earning less than $250,000 a year.

Obama continued to champion his budget in a prime-time press conference Tuesday night, but senior Senate Democrats are questioning the level of spending in it, especially in light of reports that its 10-year deficit projections may be off by as much as $2.3 trillion.

Americans consistently believe that tax cuts are good for the economy and that increased government spending tends to hurt the economy.

In the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday, 35% of voters Strongly Approve of Obama's job performance while 30% Strongly Disapprove. Sphere: Related Content