Nearly three out of five Americans (58%) say cutting government spending is more important than balancing the budget, and 43% think such spending cuts will help the struggling U.S. economy.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey also found that 45% think it is more important to balance the budget, as opposed to 41% who favor cutting taxes first.

Overall, 89% rate balancing the budget as important, but only 30% think it is more important than cutting government spending.

A separate Rasmussen Reports survey released earlier this week found that 70% of Americans think a balanced budget is good for the economy. Nearly as many (64%) doubt that Republican presidential candidate John McCain can balance the federal budget by 2013 as he has promised.

McCain’s Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, has refused to say he will balance the budget, but tracking data shows that voters trust him more when it comes to that issue.

Yet Obama has promised a number of new programs that will require a substantial increase in government spending, and, in the new survey, 44% say a rise in such spending will hurt the economy. Thirty percent (30%) say it will be good for the U.S. economy, and 14% say it will have no impact. The tracking data shows that voters think government spending is more likely to go up if Obama is elected.

Republicans by solid margins favor cutting government spending (70%) and reducing taxes (64%) over balancing the budget. A slight majority of Democrats (52%) give the edge to reducing government outlays, but only 30% favor cutting taxes over a balanced budget.

Unaffiliated voters track more closely with the responses of self-designated Democrats, with 57% favoring cutting spending over a balanced budget but only 33% ranking cutting taxes as more important. This is a potentially telling finding in a presidential race where one of the GOP candidate’s chief economic proposals is a continuation of President Bush’s tax cuts. Playing in McCain’s favor, however, is his reputation as a leading opponent of so-called pork barrel government spending.

Sixty-one percent (61%) of investors think reducing spending is more important than balancing the budget. But they favor a balanced budget over cutting taxes 47% to 43%.

White voters also favor cutting government spending first by a substantial margin (60%) as opposed to 28% who rate a balanced budget more important. By comparison, African-American voters are evenly divided on which is more important.

See survey questions and toplines. Crosstabs are available to Premium Members only.