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http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/august_2011/voters_favor_pay_cuts_for_congress_president_until_budget_is_balancedAn overwhelming majority of voters nationwide want members of Congress to take a pay cut until the federal budget is balanced, and a plurality also thinks the president should chop his salary in half until that time.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Voters shows that 82% believe members of Congress should take a 25% pay cut until the federal budget is balanced. Only 14% disagree. (To see survey question wording, click here .)
In August of last year , 75% of Likely Voters said more generally that Congress should cut its own pay until the federal budget is balanced.
Nearly half of voters (48%) also believe the president should take a 50% pay cut until the federal budget is balanced. But 41% don’t share that view, while 11% more are undecided.
The day when a balanced budget comes is a long way off, according to most voters. Just 30% think it is at least somewhat likely that the federal budget will be balanced for even a single year during their lifetimes . That includes only nine percent (9%) who say it’s Very Likely.
(Want a free daily e-mail update ? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook .
The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on July 28-29, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC . See methodology.
Whether the budget is balanced or not, 59% of voters don’t think members of Congress should receive government pensions when they leave office, but 25% say they should. Sixteen percent (16%) are not sure.
Most voters (52%) don't believe the president should receive a government pension of nearly $200,000 per year when he leaves office either. Thirty-nine percent (39%) disagree and think the president should receive that pension.
There's no partisan disagreement at all when voters are asked if Congress should take a 25% pay cut until the budget is balanced: Democrats, Republicans and voters not affiliated with either major party overwhelmingly agree they should. But while 64% of Republicans and the plurality (49%) of unaffiliated voters favor a 50% pay cut for the president until the budget is balanced, 57% of Democrats think that's a bad idea.
Similarly, most voters from all three groups oppose government pensions for retired members of Congress, but again Democrats balk when it comes to pensions for ex-presidents. Sixty-one percent (61%) of GOP voters and 58% of unaffiliateds oppose giving presidents pensions of nearly $200,000 per year, but 51% of Democrats favor such pensions.
A majority of Mainstream voters favors pay cuts for both Congress and the president until the budget is balanced. Ninety percent (90%) of Political Class voters oppose a salary cut for the president until that day comes, but they're evenly divided over a 25% pay cut for members of Congress until then.
Voter approval of the job Congress is doing has fallen to a new low - for the second month in a row.
Voters have said in the past that those who work for the government get better retirement benefits than those who work for private companies.
Most Americans continue to believe government workers also have more job security than those in the private sector and that they don’t work as hard as private sector workers.
Despite the lengthy wheeling and dealing over the debt ceiling, the end result is exactly what voters expected a week ago and the week before that. Voters overwhelmingly expected the debt ceiling to be raised .
Most also expected that the deal would not include significant spending cuts. Earlier data showed that even if cuts were agreed upon, fewer than half think the savings will actually materialize .
The debt ceiling debate has highlighted the political difficulty of coming to grips with the federal government’s massive debt. Voters now are almost evenly divided over whether they prefer a congressman who would reduce that debt with spending cuts only or opt for a mix of spending cuts and tax increases .
Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.
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