Oh, this is an easy one, Steve. People just don't understand the meaning of the word deficit. And naturally they make the common mistake of thinking that financially managing the nation is the same as managing a household. They are misinformed, but there's probably no way to correct it.

The people have spoken and they deserve to receive what they ask for ... good and hard.

You are right Steve, policymakers should definitely ignore these numbers and focus on improving the economy. The public at large has an attention span of about thirty seconds -- if the government abandoned fiscal stimulus and the the economy fell off the cliff these numbers would be reversed with stunning swiftness and next year would be an absolute bloodbath for the Democrats. It may be anyway, but such a scenario would ensure it.

The problem, of course, was how statement A was phrased: "even though it may mean larger budget deficits now and in the future."

The "in the future' part is the problem. I'm strongly for fiscal stimulus, but only if it means larger deficits now and smaller deficits (and ultimately surpluses) in the future.

No reasonable person would be for a fiscal sitimulus policy that would lead to larger deficits in the future.

At the risk of sounding like a wingnut troll, here's one simple, but possible explanation.

Option A of the second question implies more spending, which likely means they will at some point in the future be asked to pay higher taxes. It is not surprising that 62% of the people are comfortable enough with their personal economic situation that given the choice of 'status quo' and 'more taxes' they would choose status quo. The first question is phrased in such a way to put some distance between the policy choice and the impact on that choice to the responder.

Michael Moore said it best: "We live in a nation of 40 million functional illiterates: that's 40 million adults who cannot read and write above a fourth grade or fifth grade level. We have another probably 40 million adults who can read and write above a fourth grade level but don't have the comprehension beyond that very much."

He was talking about the decline of newspaper reading, but could very well have been talking about the effectiveness of polls.

Statement B sounds suspiciously like the Hoover administration approach to the Great Depression and that brought a march on Washington -- the Coxie Army "affair" and turned Hoover's great electoral victory of 1928 into 24 years of Democratic rule, 40 years if you discount Ike.

Of course in 1936 there was the infamous Literary Digest poll conducted by telephone that found that Alf Landon was headed towards a landslide victory over FDR's "socialism".

What Mitch said, @ 11:31. People think that a debt is a debt; you get too deep over your head, you get dispossessed, foreclosed, whatever. It doesn't work the same in the case of a country but how many people know that? Especially since they've been told, again and again, by our "geniuses" in Congress that, if the money is scarce, you tighten your belt -- both at home and at the govt level (spending freeze, anyone?). The pounding of that simplistic message (almost always done by the "fiscally responsible" Repubs) accounts also for the gap growing in the wrong direction.

Interestingly, it also seems to suggest that people don't have much faith in the staying power of the US, f they think it's gonna fall apart due to debt. I sometimes -- jokingly -- say that he Chinese are gonna come and request we give them the Grand Canyon and the Niagara Falls as interest payments but I ever thought there were people who took such possibility seriously.

the minders at the wall street journal know how to ask you a question, grasshopper

If the wording of the second part
was changed from "it may mean it will take longer for the economy to recover."
to "it may risk a double dip recession."
the results would also differ substantially.

Wording is everything.

The salience of deficits as an issue in the depths of a recession just goes to show we don't have an economy,
the powerful have an economy -- the rest of us have a morality play.

Majority chose B because majority still have jobs and they can still sustain their families. If unemployment were something like 70%, there wont even be a need for this kind of survey/poll.

Most people will choose B because they are not directly suffering from the lack of jobs.

Selfish? YES!

I suspect that JM has it right, but maybe it means that most people want to see higher taxes now. Not a real good idea while the economy is so shaky, but there are a number of very literate people who recognize that the reason we have a growing problem with the national debt (which is a whole lot more important than an annual deficit) is Dumbya's tax cuts for the wealthy and his determination to rally support for the Iraq war by not paying for it or even putting it in the budget.

I think Steve is reading way too much into this. The question is definitely skewed to get a B vote.

Stepping back the question reads as: "should the government spend like crazy and go into massive debt to boost the economy or should it control spending and minimize debt growth while stimulating the economy". Of course, most people will choose B.

This does not mean that a majority of the public is buying into Republican nonsense about spending freezes and so forth.

I imagine most people think that the size of the deficit directly affects the performance of the economy.

If the economy starts growing and creating good jobs, most people won't care about the deficit-just ask Dick Cheney.

This poll presents a false choice. Basically the question asks do you favor the short term benefit of higher employment along with the long term downside of higher deficits or the present hardship of higher unemployment and the future advantage of lower deficits. It then falsely assumes that that the advantages and disadvantages in each instance cancel each other out.

First, without any stimulus there would have been a serious risk of deflation. In our debt-based economy that would have been a disaster. People and institutions would still have mortgages and debts to pay off but their ability to do so would decrease, thus making their debt even more serious.

Second, the size of the budget deficit is only important relative to GDP. If we can substantially increase GDP and get the economy back to full production production quicker than it would have, the size of the deficits incurred while doing so would be mitigated by the increased ability of the nation to pay for it. Obviouly there are limits to this, but it is not necessarily a zero-sum trade off.

Third, without the stimulus the nation would be functioning at considerably below our full capacity. Not only would this have ceded market share to other nations aggressive enough to take it, but, to put it simply, it also amounts to a whole lot of stuff that doesn't get done or made. We dont't get that lost time back.

In short, sometimes it makes sense to spend money now in order to make more money later. This principle is clearly recognized by business, but people, for a variety of reasons I imagine, mistrust government to spend the money wisely.

Two points:

First, this result is entirely a product of the traditional media who didn't give a rat's ass about deficit reduction during the Bush years. Total silence until Obama was elected.

Second, Americans seem incapable of drawing a line from point A to point B. The stimulus has had an impact. We're all benefiting. But most people I know don't make the connection. They didn't notice the tax cuts they received because they didn't get them via a check in the mail (it was in the form of lower withholding from their paychecks), and if other recovery money doesn't come directly to their mailbox, then they don't understand how they benefited from it. The level of stupidity is quite discouraging.

An interesting follow up would be to find out of each set of respondents who either didn't have a job or if they were otherwise directly impacted (i.e. spouse didn't have a job) by the rise in unemployment.

Of course the wording is misleading. Something like "the economy may take longer to recover" is a completely lifeless description, whereas people have been conditioned to hate deficits for half a century or more.

Perhaps comparing "temporary increases in government debt" to "a much higher chance that you will lose your jobs and your home, and be saddled with another trillion-dollar bill for bailing out more bankers."

What skews the results is the fact that the question refers to "boosting the economy" not "Job creation and economic growth".

People are reading that the economy is getting better, but they're not seeing the jobs. They're beginning to see a disconnect between economic growth and job creation. Re-ask that question and oppose deficits with jobs, and see what kind of results you get.

Strawman choices. Deficit spending does not equal economic growth, especially with Obama's other anti-growth policies like cap and trade and protectionism.

What g.powell and oh well said. The options are asymmetrically worded and the rational response is B, which gets us a recovered econ and low deficits, whereas A gets us a recovered econ and huge permanent deficits.

Another example of how the hoi polloi are smarter than Benen.

Dumb people answer polls and surveys.

When was the last time any of you took the time to fill out a survey or answer a bunch of questions over the phone?

I spent a half hour on the phone a few weeks ago and felt like an idiot doing it. Smart, busy people avoid these things like the plague.

Steve, in general terms you are right, but the debt has gone to rather high levels lately. It therefore isn't "obvious" which trade-off is best now, IMHO.

Economic growth will lower deficits. The scenario in question A makes no sense. Even Republicans can't argue it does, since they have spent thirty years telling us about the Laffer curve.

Maybe those being polled recognized the false choices. The problem with Keynesian economics is the inability of legislators to restrain spending in times of surplus.

As long as half-educated economic simpletons keep ignoring financial-industry corruption, government is going to piss away its countercyclical expenditures on rent-seeking and executive looting. You proudly fail to understand that you live in a kleptocracy where integrity and transparency is a precondition for sustainable growth. So don't give us this brave stewardship shit. Your fiscal fixation is as reductive as the anti-tax nonsense.

flateartch --- Amen! ... I think ...

Michael Moore said it best: "We live in a nation of 40 million functional illiterates: that's 40 million adults who cannot read and write above a fourth grade or fifth grade level. We have another probably 40 million adults who can read and write above a fourth grade level but don't have the comprehension beyond that very much."

You're welcome!

Yes, disputo. Steve Benen doesn't know shit about economics (and I really mean he is absolutely clueless), and it hurts his political analysis.