48% Say Shifting Military Money To Border Security Would Make America Safer

Nearly half of U.S. voters think America would be a safer place with less spending on the military and more money put into securing the borders.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 48% of Likely U.S. Voters think America would be safer if military spending was cut and the savings used to protect the border. Just nine percent (9%) think shifting military money to border security would make the country less safe, while 34% say it would have no impact. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Interestingly, among those who have served in the military, an even higher percentage (57%) believe that a shift of funding like this would make the United States safer.

In a survey last May, 67% of all voters said military troops should be sent to the Mexican border to prevent illegal immigration. 

With Congress talking dramatic budget cuts, voters are fairly evenly divided as to whether the federal government spends too much or too little on national defense, but most also appear to dramatically underestimate how much is actually spent.  Just 56% recognize that the United States spends about six times as much on national defense as any other nation in the world.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on January 27, 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.