The political winds continue to shift, with the latest signal coming from a new Ramsussen poll that shows a full majority of Americans would simply prefer a government shutdown over raised debt ceilings.
According to Rasmussen, 56% of respondents agreed with the idea that a partial government shutdown was preferential if it meant government cut or maintained spending. These people are tired of endless government spending. At the same time, 34% said the opposite; they’d like to see more government spending to avoid a shutdown.
In related news, 34% of respondents don’t understand economics.
Breitbart reported on more of the survey, which revealed a relatively strong correlation between political affiliation and preference on the government’s next steps.
Additionally, when looked at by party, 73 percent of Republicans and 56 percent of independent respondents said they would prefer to have a partial government shutdown until Congress can figure out a way to cut spending or keep it the same, while only 41 percent of Democrats felt the same way. On the other hand, more Democrats (50 percent) would prefer to have more spending to avoid a government shutdown.
The poll comes during contentious debates in Congress in which the GOP now controls the House whereas Democrats control the Senate. Kevin McCarthy has so far aligned much of his decision making with the more hardline Freedom Caucus and could very well stand firm on demanding budget reductions in exchange for an increase to the debt ceiling.
Interestingly, four years ago under Donald Trump a similar poll revealed similar results. At the time of a different debt ceiling discussion, 54% of Americans preferred the same shutdown arrangement for a reduction in spending while 31% preferred the opposite again.
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Breitbart continued on the latest Rasmussen report:
The poll also found that most voters think there is a spending problem, with 66 percent believing it is due to “politicians’ unwillingness to reduce government spending,” while 21 percent think “taxpayers are more to blame for the size of the deficit.”
Breitbart noted that “[t]he survey was conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC for Rasmussen Reports from January 18, 19, and 22 with 900 likely voters in the United States. The poll had a three percent margin of error and a 95 percent confidence level.”
It speaks volumes about Americans’ general distrust and disliking of how politicians run our country that they’d rather take a chance on potentially defaulting on debt obligations than continue to see the Swamp continue making a mockery of the Constitution.
It seems safe to say we know what happens if we continue down this path; the government will get larger and larger while at the same time freedoms and individual rights will shrink more and more.
Many people are just willing to see what happens. And, for what it’s worth, no one is really quite sure what would happen if the government did shut down or stop making payments to its debt.
As the BBC wrote several years ago, “no one really knows exactly what would happen” if such an event would take place. Some see this as an acceptable risk to the alternative of a massive and bloated federal bureaucracy.
No one really knows exactly what would happen, but the likelihood is that markets around the world would plunge and global interest rates would rise.
This is because if the US government could not repay the money it owed bondholders, the value of the bonds would decrease. And the yield – the return the government pays to an investor – would rise. This is because it would be perceived as a less safe investment.
This would prompt interest rates around the world, which are often tied to those of US Treasuries, to spike.