Sixty-two percent (62%) of Americans say it’s always better to cut taxes than increase government spending because taxpayers, not bureaucrats, are the best judges of how to spend their own money.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 20% of adults disagree, and 18% are not sure.

The new findings mark a nine-point increase in support for taxpayers as the best judges of spending since January.

But then Americans by a two-to-one margin – 50% to 25% - believe that a dollar of tax cuts is always better than a dollar of public spending. One-in-four-Americans (25%), however, aren’t sure.

Similarly, just 25% say public spending provides much more bang for the buck than tax cuts when it comes to economic policy and creating jobs. Fifty percent (50%) disagree that public spending is better for the economy than tax cuts. But again 26% are undecided.

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Women are more likely than men to prefer government spending over tax cuts. Investors favor cutting taxes more than non-investors.

Republicans are almost twice as likely as Democrats to think that taxpayers are the best judges of how to spend their own money. Sixty-seven percent (67%) of adults not affiliated with either party agree.

While two-thirds (67%) of Republicans and the plurality (49%) of unaffiliateds say a dollar of tax cuts is always better than a dollar of public spending, Democrats are evenly divided on the question.

Seventy percent (70%) of voters favor a government that offers fewer services and imposes lower taxes over one that provides more services with higher taxes. Fifty-four percent (54%) worry the federal government will try to do too much to fix the economy rather than not enough.

Support for tax cuts over new government spending has been consistent in years of surveys. As for taxpayers’ confidence in themselves over bureaucrats, consider that 74% of Americans trust their own economic judgment more than that of the average member of Congress. By a two-to-one margin, voters also trust their own economic judgment more than President Obama’s.

When it comes to Obama’s trillion-dollar health care reform plan, most voters think they understand it better than Congress does - and about as well as the president himself.

Fifty-four percent (54%) of voters say tax cuts for the middle class are more important than new spending for health care reform, even as the president’s top economic advisers signal that tax hikes may be necessary. Seventy-six percent (76%) believe it is at least somewhat likely that taxes will have to be raised on the middle class to cover the cost of health care reform.

Sixty-eight percent (68%) say government spending will go up under the Obama administration.
While a government job looks less attractive to Americans than it did at the beginning of the year, it remains the top employment choice in today’s economic environment.

Still, for nearly four-out-of-five voters, the problem is not their unwillingness to pay taxes. It’s their elected representatives’ refusal to cut the size of government.

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