OPINION:
The American people want a balanced budget and our government under control.
Our work at America’s New Majority Project confirms this.
By 70% to 13%, Americans favor a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. This includes 67% of Democrats, 74% of Republicans and 70% of independents.
Americans are convinced that balancing the budget and cutting spending will help reduce inflation. By 67% to 19%, Americans favor reducing spending to reduce inflation. This is supported by key demographic voter groups (74% of Hispanics and 55% of Blacks are for it).
It also crosses political lines: 52% of Democrats, 70% of independents and 81% of Republicans are for cutting spending to curb inflation.
Most Americans believe that eliminating waste and corruption in government would be enough to balance the budget. This includes Democrats, who traditionally support large, centralized government.
In one Gallup study, people estimated that half of government spending is waste.
In the fight between the House and Senate over whether spending could be cut below the debt ceiling agreement, Americans were overwhelmingly with House Republicans.
More than half of Americans (57%) favored even deeper spending cuts, while less than one-quarter (22%) opposed additional cuts.
Of the 57% who said cutting government spending would benefit the economy, 22% said it would be “very good.” Only 7% thought it would be “very bad” for the economy to cut government spending.
Americans favor spending cuts so much they would support a limited, temporary shutdown of the federal government to get it done. There is a similar 57%-to-22% margin in favor of cutting spending even if it takes a shutdown.
This depth of support from the American people even manifests itself in partisan questions. A full 51% of voters prefer a GOP candidate who wants a budget bill that cuts spending and is willing to allow noncritical parts of the government to shut down to pressure the president to sign it.
Only 34% favor a Democratic candidate who wants a budget bill that continues to raise spending and opposes allowing noncritical parts of the government to shut down.
This gap in responses represents a 4-point gain from the generic ballot for the Republican and a 7-point drop from the generic for the Democrat. The generic ballot is a simple survey that asks people for their party preference for Congress.
Interestingly, the largest gain in the GOP vote comes from independents (plus 13%) and Asians (plus 12%).
The current massive deficits and the enormous national debt hurt Americans and America in a number of ways. Just paying interest on the debt this year will exceed $1 trillion.
That’s right. We will spend more paying interest to bondholders than we will spend on the entire Department of Defense.
Bigger government deficits mop up capital that should go to creating jobs and increasing productivity.
Bureaucrats guiding the economy is a disaster compared with the effectiveness of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Overregulating small businesses kills job creation.
If a business or a family had a debt burden on the scale of the U.S., it would be considered a crisis that had to be solved. It is a crisis for America, and it must be solved.
The best strategy for saving Medicare and Social Security is to return to a high-growth economy that creates jobs and strengthens government revenue through growth rather than taxation.
I know this can be done. As I wrote in my latest book, “March to the Majority,” I led the effort that created the only four consecutive balanced budgets in your lifetime as speaker of the House in the 1990s.
The time has come for House Republicans to join the American people in fighting for a balanced budget. We learned a great deal when I was speaker, and House Republicans and rational Democrats should use what we learned to do it again.
It’s what the American people want.
• For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com.
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