POLL: Spending Issues Still Reign Supreme

WASHINGTON – With a number of spending issues on the horizon such as what to do with green energy subsidies and the $1 trillion farm bill, which is currently moving through Congress, the American Energy Alliance (AEA) today released a new poll focusing on government spending. MWR Strategies conducted the nationwide survey with a sample of 1000 likely voters and a margin of error of 3.1 percent.

Results show that overall, voters—especially those who support Republicans—want Washington to remain focused on economic and fiscal issues. While other issues such as Obamacare continue to be top priorities, they are ultimately rooted in larger concerns about the nation’s fiscal and economic health.  An overwhelming 86 percent of Republican voters believe Congress can work on health care and spending issues at the same time.

AEA President Thomas Pyle released the following statement:

“The message to lawmakers from this poll is that their constituents expect them to walk and chew gum at the same time.  They shouldn’t use the disastrous impact of Obamacare or other major issues as an excuse to abandon commonsense, fiscal responsibility.  Americans want Washington to get out of the way of job creators, increase our supply of affordable energy and cut wasteful spending regardless of the political calendar.  There’s no reason to trade our nation’s long-term fiscal health for a short-term political wins.”

Reducing spending is still a top priority on the minds of Americans and Congress can take important steps toward achieving that goal. For example, they must ensure there is accountability and oversight in the farm bill’s energy title and they must prevent the retroactive extension of the Wind Production Tax Credit.

In addition, they should work towards ending the billions in special interest giveaways to failing “green” energy companies and replace such harmful policies with pro-growth initiatives that encourage the development of America’s vast energy resources, which would create millions of new jobs and improve the nation’s fiscal and economic outlook well into the future.

Key Findings:

• As voters look toward the new year, four out of five (79 percent) said that Congress and the President should make jobs and the economy one of their top priorities for 2014.
• Other top priorities included health care (60 percent) and federal spending (59 percent).
• 35 percent of voters thought attention should be on energy independence.
• About one-quarter (26 percent) believed that the farm bill should be among top action items for Washington.
• By a margin of 86 percent to 10 percent, Republican voters think it is possible for Republicans in Congress to work both on spending issues and health care issues at the same time.
• Eighty-two percent of Republican voters think that Republicans in Congress should use the need to raise the debt limit as an opportunity to make progress toward meaningful reductions in government spending.
• Only a plurality (47 percent) of Republican voters support the farm bill. By and large, Republican voters favor the House’s approach to the farm bill that makes much of the spending in the farm bill optional – as opposed to mandatory (54 percent to 19 percent).

This survey of 1,000 likely voters was conducted using landline (n=535), cell phone (n=115), and online interviews (n=350). It was fielded Dec 29-30, 2013 and Jan 2-4, 2013.The survey has a margin of error of +/-3.1% at the 95% confidence interval.

To read the full memo, click here.
To see the results of the survey, click here.

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