The Cato Institute has a new poll that shows that Americans don’t think politicians are good stewards of their tax dollars and are favorable to a serious review of our spending.
Findings from the Cato Institute’s 2025 Fiscal Policy National Survey of 2,000 Americans reveal a bleak assessment of the government’s financial responsibility. More than three-fourths (76 percent) of Americans believe the federal government “spends too much money.”
This sentiment may be driven in part by the fact that 85 percent say the increase in government spending over the past decade has either had no impact (42 percent) or even reduced (43 percent) their quality of life. A staggering 98 percent of Americans believe there is at least some “waste fraud and/or abuse” in federal spending, including 66 percent who say there is a considerable amount.
Perceptions of government waste may have reached an all-time high. Americans estimate that 59 cents of every dollar the federal government spends is wasted. This is higher than Gallup has recorded since it began asking the question in 1979.
This may be why 9 in 10 Americans (89 percent) support an audit and evaluation of all federal government spending to identify and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. This includes majorities of Democrats (83 percent), independents (89 percent), and Republicans (99 percent) who support a government-wide audit.
Meanwhile, there is another reason to cut spending. Our deficit is going up bigly. We are only halfway through the fiscal year, and the deficit is already $1.3 trillion, and interest payments on the debt have already reached half a trillion dollars.
Finally, because this is such a weird time, I will remind politicians that fiscal adjustments based on tax increases will not reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio, and they are also more recessionary in the short and long term than expenditure-based fiscal adjustments. So don’t think about it.
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