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BUSINESS

Voters Continue To Favor Lower Taxes, Less Spending

In his State of the Union speech this week, President Obama refrained from using the term “government spending,” calling it "investment" instead, and made sure to highlight his support for extending the Bush tax cuts.  Most voters continue to feel that cutting taxes and reducing government spending are best for the economy.  

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 29% of Likely Voters say increases in government spending will help the economy.  Fifty percent (50%) believe increases in such spending will hurt economically, while another 12% say they will have no impact.  (To see survey question wording, click here.)

These findings show little change since regular tracking on this question began in early June 2009.

Conversely, half (50%) of voters believe that decreases in government spending will help the economy, while 23% say they will hurt the economy.  Fifteen percent (15%) say cutting government spending will have no impact.  These results, too, have held relatively steady since July 2008.

This helps explain why 41% support the president's new spending proposals, but 50% oppose them.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on January 25-26, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

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