The U.S. public shows little appetite for making the spending cuts often discussed as part of a “grand bargain” on the federal budget, according to a national survey by the Pew Research Center conducted in December 2013. The survey found that majorities say it is more important to maintain spending on Social Security and Medicare (69 percent) and programs to help the poor (59 percent) than to take steps to reduce the deficit. About half of Americans (51 percent) say reducing the deficit is more important than keeping military spending at current levels. Pew reports that views of tradeoffs between government spending and deficit reduction are divided along partisan lines with 84 percent of Democrats prioritizing spending on programs that aid the poor and needy over deficit reduction and 55 percent of Republicans prioritizing deficit reduction.

This article appears in January 20-27 2014.