WASHINGTON, July 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- In a unique survey initiated by the nonpartisan organizations Voice of the People and Common Ground Solutions and conducted by the University of Maryland's Program for Public Consultation (PPC), respondents made up their own Federal budget, and majorities of both Republicans and Democrats nationwide converged on a combination of spending cuts and revenue increases that would reduce the deficit for 2019 by $128.4 billion.

Majorities of all voters in very red districts and very blue districts went further, agreeing on $268.3 billion in deficit reduction. The overall national majority went further still, reducing the deficit by $347.9 billion.

A random sample of 2,714 registered voters were presented actual discretionary spending for FY 2018 and sources of general revenues, actual and proposed. They were then given the opportunity to modify both spending and revenues, getting feedback as they went along about the effect of their choices on the projected deficit. Respondents were not instructed to reduce the deficit, and were able to both increase or decrease spending and revenues.

The biggest changes voters made were on the revenue side, with majorities of Republicans and Democrats agreeing on increases totaling $98.4 billion. This included rolling back by half, the new tax bill's cuts in income taxes for those earning over $500,000 ($16.6 billion) and alcohol taxes were increased to 25¢ per ounce of alcohol ($6.6 billion).

Most new taxes were aimed at Wall Street, including a new fee of 0.1% on financial transactions, such as the sale of stocks ($63 billion), a new fee on uninsured debt held by financial institutions ($10 billion), and eliminating the special treatment for hedge fund managers ($2.2 billion).

On spending, majorities of both Republicans and Democrats agreed on cuts of $30 billion. Most cuts were to defense spending, including for the base defense budget ($13 billion), nuclear weapons ($2 billion), and the operations in Afghanistan and Syria ($2 billion).

"These results show that when Americans are given unbiased facts on issues – in ways that don't try to sway them one way or the other – they often find common sense solutions to problems more easily than our elected officials," said Common Ground Solutions Founder Howard Konar.

Majorities in both very red and very blue districts, in reducing the deficit by $268.3 billion, agreed on $74 billion in spending cuts. Most notably, they reduced defense spending by $43 billion and Homeland Security by $14 billion. They also agreed on $194.3 billion in revenue increases.  They rolled back the recent tax cuts for incomes over $200,000 ($44 billion), and the cuts to corporate taxes ($50.5 billion). They rolled back the cut to the estate tax ($8 billion) and adopted a new tax on sugary drinks of 1/2¢ per ounce ($10 billion).

The overall national majority went further, cutting the deficit by $347.9 billion. They reduced the base defense budget by $63 billion and Homeland Security by $19 billion, while increasing spending on K-12 education by $2 billion.

"Clearly Americans are concerned about the deficit and are ready to make some tough choices to bring it down—more than Congress is even ready to consider," said PPC Director Steven Kull.

Members of the public may take the survey at: http://vop.org/budget_fy19.  The full report and questionnaire are available at http://vop.org/budgetfy19.

The online survey was conducted from June 8-25, 2018 with a national probability-based sample of 2,714 registered voters, provided by Nielsen Scarborough from its sample of respondents, who were recruited by mail and telephone using a random sample of households. The national sample of 2,339 registered voters has a margin of error of (+/-) 2% and included an oversample of 375 registered voters from California and Ohio.

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SOURCE Voice of the People