We often complain about elected officials being non-serious about fiscal discipline, but in terms of la-la-land budgeting, Congress has nothing on the American public.

This week’s Economist/YouGov poll asked Americans about fiscal policy. First, they asked what budget-balancing measures respondents prefer: raising taxes, cutting spending, or both. 62 percent said cut spending only; only 5 percent of respondents preferred a tax-only approach.

So far, so good. The trouble comes the pollster asks about cutting spending on specific programs. Respondents were asked whether they favored cutbacks in 16 significant areas of the federal budget. Of these, only foreign aid commanded majority support for a cut (71 percent)—unfortunately, foreign aid consumes less than 0.5% of federal spending. For all other budget areas, fewer than 30 percent of respondents favored a cut in spending.

There is even less support for spending cuts in the truly large sectors of the federal budget. Just 7 percent of respondents said they wanted to spend less on Medicare and Social Security, 11 percent on Medicaid, and 17 percent on “aid to the poor.” Cuts in defense spending were slightly more popular, at 22 percent. We can’t come close to balancing the federal budget without touching these areas.

In what was perhaps a wise move for my sanity, The Economist didn’t ask respondents if they’d like to unilaterally stop making interest payments on the public debt—but I bet that would have been a more popular move than sending smaller checks to old people.

While the poll shows the public to be less into cutting spending than they seem at first blush, they are more open to tax increases, so long as those taxes are paid by somebody else. While only 29 percent of respondents said tax increases should be part or all of a solution to close the budget gap, 59 percent said they favor raising taxes on people making more than $250,000 per year.

So, what’s the upshot of this poll? Here’s my take:

  1. It’s not news that the public’s views on budget policy are incoherent. People don’t have a good sense of what the government spends money on, and they don’t think about government with a budget constraint, where tax and spending levels have to be linked. Similarly, a poll would likely find that “eating ice cream every day” and “not getting fat” are both very popular—and just as we wouldn’t take that as meaningful dietary guidance, we should take fiscal policy public opinion with a grain of salt.
  2. Public realism hasn’t been helped by the last two administrations’ fiscal policies. The public is basically expressing the Bush Administration’s view of budgeting: i.e., that low taxes and high spending can coexist. Meanwhile, Obama has staked out the position that policy changes are fine so long as they don’t make the (already massive) fiscal gap larger. Most leaders are not yet demanding that Washington tighten its belt—so why should the public have come to terms with needing to give anything up?
  3. If the poll is a guide, the path of least political resistance involves not touching spending and raising taxes on “somebody else,” whether that’s wealthy people, smokers, or some other disfavored group. Not coincidentally, that’s the path the Obama Administration has been following to date. But you can’t actually raise enough new revenue to close the budget gap by following this route, which is why the Admin is floating VAT trial balloons.
  4. If only 7% of the public wants to cut Medicare or Social Security, a large majority of Republicans oppose such cuts. That’s probably why Republicans focused their opposition to ObamaCare around the fact that it would cut Medicare spending. But it also suggests there would be an opportunity to move the needle with base Republican voters if more Republican politicians would get out there—like Paul Ryan has—and discuss the need to reform and shrink both of these programs.