Articles

Facing up to the nation's finances:
Understanding public attitudes about the federal budget

Public Agenda Alert
December 12, 2006

Two public opinion research studies from the nonpartisan "Facing Up to the Nation's Finances" initiative conclude that the public has little difficulty understanding the magnitude of the fiscal challenge facing the nation and is willing to consider tough tradeoffs to address the growing national debt. But public support comes with one key condition: finding ways to increase trust that their leaders will spend their money responsibly.

"Facing Up to the Nation's Finances" is a nonpartisan initiative developed by Public Agenda and Viewpoint Learning drawing on the research and analysis done at the Brookings Institution, the Concord Coalition, and the Heritage Foundation. The goal is to enable more Americans to confront and work through realistic choices for addressing the nation's financial condition.

The "Facing Up" initiative aims to organize a nonpartisan movement of citizens and leaders in honest public dialogue on confronting the long-term challenges to our future. Among those challenges are the impending retirements of the baby boomers, the growth in health care costs and the budget deficit and accumulated national debt. The initiative involves new forms of opinion research, public engagement and intensive engagement of leadership in a multi-year project leading up to the 2008 Presidential elections and beyond.

Public Agenda's focus group report, "Facing Up to the Nation's Finances: Understanding Public Attitudes about the Federal Budget," found while the public was uninformed on federal budget issues, they required relatively little information to appreciate the magnitude of the problem. But the public's deeply felt cynicism about government is a major barrier that must be addressed before
progress can be made.

Viewpoint Learning's ChoiceDialogue report, "Americans Deliberate Our Nation's Finances and Future: It's not about taxes -- It's about trust" shows that, given an opportunity to work through the issues, Americans find a surprising amount of common ground. They were willing to support changes that require sacrifice, including program cuts and tax increases, but only if they could be assured that their tax money was being well spent and for the purposes intended.

Find out more about the initiative and download free copies of the research studies from Public Agenda Online:
http://www.publicagenda.org/research/research_reports_
details.cfm?list=104

The "Facing Up to the Nation's Finances" project is being supported by the Ford Foundation.

Copyright 2006 Public Agenda. More information: www.publicagenda.org.

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