Just 38% Think Major Spending Cuts by Congress Likely In The Next Year

Despite talk from congressional Republicans and President Obama’s State of the Union comments about debt reduction, most voters still think Congress is unlikely to make major spending cuts in the near future.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 38% of Likely U.S. Voters believe Congress is even somewhat likely to significantly reduce government spending over the next year while 54% say such reductions are unlikely.

Those figures include only nine percent (9%) who say significant cuts are Very Likely and 15% who say they are Not At All Likely. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

These figures show only modest change from the beginning of December when 33% said significant spending cuts were somewhat likely in the next year.

Voters are a little more optimistic that the president can work with the new Republican-controlled House. Forty-six percent (46%) now are at least somewhat confident that the president can work with the GOP majority in the House to do what’s best for the American people. That’s an improvement from early December when just 38% of voters were even somewhat confident the two could work together.

(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.