One of the key new initiatives in President Obama’s State of the Union speech is a three-year freeze on discretionary government spending, but voters overwhelmingly believe the freeze will have little or no impact on the federal deficit.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just nine percent (9%) think the freeze will reduce the deficit a lot.

Eighty-one percent (81%) disagree, including 42% who say it will have no impact. Another 39% say the freeze in nearly all areas except defense, national security, veterans affairs and entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will reduce the deficit a little.

Still, 56% favor the president’s plan for a three-year freeze on discretionary spending. Only 24% oppose it, and 20% more are undecided. Other data suggests that voters view the proposal as a first step in the right direction.

Overall, 57% would like to see a cut in government spending, 23% favor a freeze, and 12% say the government should increase spending. Republicans and unaffiliated voters overwhelmingly favor spending cuts. Democrats are evenly divided between spending cuts and a spending freeze.

It’s important to note that 49% of voters think reducing federal spending is more important than bringing down the deficit. Thirty-nine percent (39%) say reducing the deficit is more important.

The data found a significant partisan divide on this point. Most Republicans (58%) and unaffiliateds (53%) believe cutting federal spending is more important that cutting the deficit. A plurality (48%) of Democrats take the opposite view and believe reducing the deficit is more important.

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During his State of the Union address Wednesday night, the president touched on a number of topics that Rasmussen Reports has current polling data on measuring the attitudes of the American people.

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of voters believe cutting taxes is better than increasing government spending as a job-creation tool, but 72% expect Congress to increase spending instead. Eighty-two percent (82%) of voters nationwide say they have followed news stories about the president’s State of the Union address, including 40% who have been following very closely.

Democrats from the start have viewed health care reform as the most important of the budget priorities cited by the president in a speech to Congress last February. Republicans and unaffiliated voters consistently have said the president’s priority should be cutting the federal budget deficit in half by the end of his first term.

The Congressional Budget Office this week projected that the federal government’s 2010 budget deficit will be $1.35 trillion, a higher portion of the economy than at any time since World War II.Sixty-one percent (61%) of all voters now say Congress should drop health care reform and focus on more immediate ways to improve the economy and create jobs.

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