Poll:Voters Prefer Military Spending Cuts to Reduce the Deficit (2013)

Military Spending Cuts to Reduce the Deficit?

Polls have found that more voters favor slashing military spending vs. cutting spending on domestic programs like Medicare and Social Security in order to reduce the debt and deficit.

49% of respondents said they would support cutting military spending, while just 23% said they would support slashing Social Security and Medicare. An overwhelming majority, 69% said they would oppose cuts to social programs.

37% Said the US spends too much on the military and 38% said we are spending just the right amount. Only 18% said too little.

Some Political Cartoons on Military and National Defense spending showing different perspectives on the issue

Explanations for citizen support of public policies like military and national defense spending

What leads people to support Public Policy like Military and National Defense spending? excerpted from my research proposal (Zehnder 2014)

There are conflicting explanations among the reasons for citizen support of public policies like military and national defense spending. Psychological research attributes fear for support of military spending, more specifically fear of terrorism in the United States. Political Science research attributes state characteristics as the leading cause for support of military spending. State characteristics are the characteristics of a political state such as geographic location (North, or South), state of the union, racial ethnicity, number of military personnel in a state, economic benefit in a state from military and political climate based on recent public policy decisions or wars. In a study conducted by Tuzuner, Dolu, and Uludag, (2012) researchers conducted an experiment to find which explanation was correct. They concluded that state characteristics, the Political Science explanation is the leading cause of support for public policy showing that state characteristics of American citizens such as living in the Southern states leads to more support of military spending (Tuzuner et. al. 2012).

Polls and news sources vary displaying their in their results of American opinions on Military spending. However, over the years you can notice some trends. Torres-Reyna and Shapiro (2002) investigated trends over the years in public opinion of military spending using the state characteristics of budget tradeoffs, views on the quality of America’s defenses, and confidence in the military as explanations for these trends. They found that long term views on military spending were influenced most strongly by the state characteristics of  popularity of wars we were in, existing threats to the United States, and perceived strength of the military (Torres-Reyna, Shapiro, 2002).

References

Torres-Reyna, O., Shapiro, R.Y. (2002), The polls trends: defense and the military. Public Opinion Quarterly, 66(2), 279-303.            

Tuzuner, M., Dolu, O., Uludag, S. (2012), Unraveling the determinants or public support for anti-terrorism policies in the united states: fear of terrorism and state contextual characteristics. Review of International Law and Politics, 8(32), 97-115. 

-Corey Zehnder

  

 

Take my Military and National Defense Spending survey if you are an undergraduate college student!

I have created a survey with the purpose of measuring undergraduate college students' views on military and national defense spending. This is interesting research and you can be apart of it. Once I have enough participants, I will post the final result on this blog, so you can visibly see the results.


Click here to take the survey

Your participation in this exciting research is greatly appreciated
-Corey Zehnder

 

Americans Have Most Confidence in Military, Least in Congress, pretty interesting revelation...

The Trend Line: Americans' Views on Military Spending Are Steady a more in depth view

Do Americans feel that our National Defense is stronger than it needs to be? 

This graph clearly shows that Americans believed our national defense strength was the right amount from 1984- 2006 respectively. Only in 2006- 2008 do we see a resurgence of our national defense not being strong enough, and this was most likely due to the financial crisis of 2007 causing anxiety in many citizens due to them losing their jobs. Generally speaking though, Americans believe that our national defense is about the right amount.

The graph was retrieved here: http://www.gallup.com/poll/1666/military-national-defense.aspx 

Plurality seen in Americans in terms of wanting to keep the defense budget about the same

 The Pew Research Center Says Plurality among Americans about this issue...

On 02/24/14 Bruice Drake of the Pew Research center wrote an article titled: Plurality of Americans support current defense spending. In this article, he outlined the data collected from the polls on this issue. The most notable results which I have displayed below are from 2 questions. The first one asked Americans When it comes to spending on national defense, do you think that U.S. spending should be increased, cut back, or kept about the same? The second question asked Americans In general does the United States rely on it's military to achieve foreign policy goals too much, too little, or about right. As you can see the first question is more relevant for discussion. Surprisingly enough Republicans and Democrats tended to agree that we are spending enough leading to an overall average of 47% of Americans thinking we are spending enough on national defense budget.

In my opinion, Americans mainly Democrats and Independents are starting to attribute military response in conflicts as the U.S. simply trying to assert it's foreign policy and financial interest. Though most Americans understand this is a necessity with 43% saying we rely on military strength about the right amount to achieve foreign policy. These results are very interesting and relevant to this discussion.
Link to article: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/02/24/plurality-of-americans-support-current-level-of-defense-spending/ 

Gallup Poll

MILITARY AND NATIONAL DEFENSE BUDGET

 About the blogger

My name is Corey Zehnder, and I am a 23 year old Senior Psychology Major and Political Science Minor at the University of Georgia. I first gained an interest in politics when I took my intro to Political Science course Freshman Year.

Gallup Poll on Military and National Defense Budget

 

According to the latest Gallup poll on national defense spending, 35% of Americans believe that we are spending too much on national defense. 26% believe we are spending too little on national defense. This difference in percentages has shrunk over recent years though.

Consequently when asked if they thought the United States was number one in the world militarily or if it is only one amongst several leading powers, only 50% of Americans believed the U.S. was number one and 47% believed that the U.S. was only one amongst several powers. (Based on 2013 results)

 

Why care about Military and National Defense Budget?

 In recent years the National Defense budget has been cut substantially affecting the defense capabilities of the United States as well as the careers of soldiers. Some people believe that we live in a dangerous world where National defense is the optimum priority of spending. Others believe that spending on the Military is wasted resources that could be used in other sectors of American government. Either way, you are directly or indirectly being affected by the increase or decrease of the United States Military and National Defense budget.

Increase in Military Budget (Stronger Military)

VS.

Decrease in Military Budget (Weaker Military)

Link to Poll:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/1666/Military-National-Defense.aspx

 By: Corey Zehnder