Voters Reject the Politics of Austerity
By Ethan Winter, Isa Alomran, and Evangel Penumaka
This blog is the third in a series of posts that explore likely voters’ attitudes towards the national debt and deficit-financed spending. In our first post, we discussed the results of an October survey where we found that likely voters support deficit-spending when it is anchored to a promise of immediate, material benefits. We also found that likely voters see the coronavirus pandemic and economic downturn as more pressing problems than the growing national debt. In our second post we discussed the results of another October survey where we found that voters were supportive of increases to the national debt when linked to economic growth. Moreover, we found that voters support deficit-financed aid to state and local governments and that they trust the Democratic Party on the debt more than they do the Republicans.
As part of a November survey, we sought to further explore this topic by testing what issues likely voters are concerned about and what kinds of discrete policy likely voters would be willing to finance through deficit spending, before running through another round of message tests on the national debt.
We began by testing how voter concern about the national debt compares to concerns about other pressing policy issues our country faces, such the coronavirus pandemic and healthcare costs. We find that concern about the national debt is subordinated to all other issues tested. The number of likely voters “very concerned” about the coronavirus, healthcare, prescription, drug costs, and the economy all rank above 50 percent at 67 percent, 62 percent, 55 percent, and 53 percent, respectively. For the national debt, meanwhile, this figure sits at 47 percent.
In an opinion piece published in the Washington Post, the economist Jared Bernstein, who President-elect Joe Biden just named to the Council of Economic Advisors, outlined policies that justified deficit-spending and those that did not. Specifically, Bernstein argues that “ good debt does three things that bad debt doesn’t: It promotes growth, relieves hardship and advances racial equity.” To test what likely voters see as good or bad debt, we then asked if they would support deficit-financing to fund a range of different policy proposals.
We find that a majority of likely voters support adding to the national debt to provide another round of $1,200 stimulus payments (62 percent), creating jobs in the clean energy sector (57 percent), and providing increased unemployment and nutrition assistance (56 percent). In contrast, likely voters are split on whether military spending merits adding to the national debt and roundly reject the need for deficit-financed tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, at 69 percent and 71 percent, respectively.
We then asked likely voters what they judge to be more important between reducing healthcare costs and funding infrastructure spending or reducing an out of control national debt. We find that by a 29-percentage-point margin, likely voters identify returning these material benefits as more important. Majorities of both likely voters that self-identify as Democrats and Independents / Third Party both see reductions to healthcare costs and rebuilding infrastructure as more important by 62-point and 23-point margins, respectively. Likely voters that self-identify as Republicans, meanwhile, are more divided: fifty percent think that getting the national debt under control is important and 42 think we should focus on healthcare, prescription drugs costs, and infrastructure spending instead.
Counter-cyclical spending on the part of the government is at the heart of Keynsenian economic theory. We tested support among likely voters for this approach. We asked, specifically, whether during economic downturns the government should step in and increase spending to help the private sector recover or whether the government should enact similar belt-tightening measures that households do.
We find that by a 20-point margin, likely voters prefer the government increase spending during economic downturns. A majority (77 percent) of Democrats and a plurality (44 percent) of Independent / Third Party voters want the government to enact counter-cyclical fiscal policy. Republicans were again generally divided on this question. A narrow majority (51 percent) want the government to focus on reducing the national debt during downturns, while 37 percent say they would back increased spending on the part of the government.
Last, we asked likely voters a question to gauge attitudes about the time horizons that can come with deficit spending. Likely voters were given four response options: that deficit-spending is to be supported in general, that deficit-spending should be short term and aimed at crisis response, that deficit-spending should be avoided at all costs, and an option if they aren’t sure.
The important takeaway is that a majority of likely voters (63 percent) back deficit-spending in principal. Still, the plurality position (39 percent) is that deficit-spending should be largely confined to crisis response. This is both a question of political messaging and, in terms of economics, effectively comports with the argument Bernstein makes that “even with low rates and the ensuing low debt service, it is essential to raise the necessary revenue to pay for permanent measures.”
In his piece, Bernstein argues that “Austerity equals human suffering. Such suffering will not be equally distributed. It will fall on those most vulnerable to the coronavirus and the economic damage it has unleashed.” On this point, likely voters agree with him. They overwhelmingly oppose austerity, supporting a host of measures aimed at providing badly needed economic-relief and back proposals to leverage deficit-spending to bring down the costs of prescription drugs and healthcare.
Ethan Winter (@EthanBWinter) is an analyst at Data for Progress. You can email him at ethan@dataforprogress.org
Isa Alomran is an intern at Data for Progress.
Evangel Penumaka (@evangelpenumaka) is a polling analyst at Data for Progress
Methodology
From November 5 to November 6, 2020, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 1,095 likely voters nationally using web-panel respondents. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is ±3.0 percentage points.