A supermajority of American voters expressed support for a constitutional amendment that would require a balanced federal budget within the next decade, according to a recent survey.
July’s Harvard-Harris Poll showed that only 20% of respondents opposed the notion, with the political breakdown suggesting strong bipartisan support.
Republican respondents logged the most support, with 83% of registered voters saying yes to the proposition. Democrats were not very far behind at 79%.
Interestingly, independents showed the least support for the idea, with 76% agreeing.
Social media user Ryan Mayo reacted to the poll results, tweeting, “When the public is told what would need to be cut and how high taxes would need to be to achieve this, they’ll immediately be over it.”
A balanced budget amendment has previously been raised in Congress by Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who recently advocated for the initiative on the campaign trail.
“We need to grow our economy around 5 percent. We have to stop spending money we don’t have. We have to turn the spigot off. … I think the people in our country would happily vote for it. The notion of a smaller and less intrusive government cannot be more needed today than it has been in my lifetime,” Scott said, WMUR ABC 9 reported.
The poll results further revealed that Americans feel a deep dissatisfaction with the state of the country, particularly the economy.
Some 47% of respondents said their personal finances were getting worse, and 74% said they believed that America is either in a recession now or will be within a year.
Furthermore, 58% of respondents said the Biden administration had grown the deficit too much, and 53% added that it had spent too much taxpayer money.
The poll was conducted July 19-20, with 2,068 registered voters surveyed.
“Results were weighted for age within gender, region, race/ethnicity, marital status, household size, income, employment, political party, political ideology, and education where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population,” per the Harvard-Harris Poll.
