Majority of Voters Want Lawmakers to Avoid a Government Shutdown

NEW YORK — A vast majority of Americans across the political spectrum want lawmakers to quit it with the political brinkmanship and avoid a partial government shutdown next month, according to a new poll by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

The nonpartisan fiscal watchdog’s new national survey was jointly conducted by the Democratic firm Global Strategy Group and the Republican firm North Star Opinion Research.

It found that nine-in-10 voters — including 91% of Democrats and 89% of Republicans — want Washington lawmakers from both parties to work together to avoid a government shutdown and focus their efforts on bringing down the national debt.

More than three-quarters of those surveyed (77%) said a shutdown should be avoided because it would hurt the economy, while a slightly smaller majority (70%) said a shutdown would be a distraction preventing Congress from addressing the nation’s larger fiscal challenges.

A majority of respondents (70%) also believe lawmakers will be unable to come to a budget agreement by the Sept. 30 deadline.

In an email to The Well News Thursday morning, a spokesperson with the White House Office of Management and Budget said, “although the crucial work continues to reach a bipartisan, bicameral agreement on fiscal year 2024 appropriations bills, it is clear that a short-term continuing resolution will be needed next month. 

“As part of our responsibility to prudently plan for a short-term CR, OMB is providing Congress with technical assistance needed to avoid severe disruptions to government services in the first quarter of the fiscal year,” the spokesperson continued. 

“We urge Congress to include these anomalies along with the critical emergency supplemental needs the administration transmitted earlier this month in any forthcoming CR, as they have done on a bipartisan basis many times in the past,” they said.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has reportedly asked House Republicans to help him pass a “short-term” continuing resolution to fund the government beyond Sept. 30 while the House and Senate continue to slow-walk the next federal budget toward passage.

So far, in marked contrast to the last Congress, the House has passed just one of 12 regular appropriations bills; the Senate has passed none. 

According to its current schedule, the House will be in session for just 11 days before the end of the current fiscal year.

The Peterson Foundation survey went on to say that “strong majorities” of Americans also feel that as lawmakers prepare to return to Washington following the August recess, 80% of voters want the debt to be a top-three priority for the president and Congress, including 71% of Democrats, 78% of independents and 92% of Republicans.

And a growing number of voters favor the creation of a bipartisan fiscal commission to recommend a comprehensive package of reforms to reduce the national debt.

Sixty-eight percent of voters support a bipartisan fiscal commission, which is up five points from June. 

Support for a fiscal commission spans party lines, including 69% of Democrats and 67% of Republicans; overall, only 5% of voters are opposed to the idea.

“Nobody wins in a government shutdown, especially our economy and the American people,” said Michael A. Peterson, CEO of the Peterson Foundation, in a written statement. “Today’s new poll shows that voters feel very strongly that we must avoid the economic damage of a shutdown, and focus instead on real solutions to our nation’s fiscal challenges. 

“A bipartisan fiscal commission has support from strong majorities in both parties, and would be an effective means of having a rational and comprehensive process to work together on reforms to stabilize the national debt,” he continued. “Calls from their constituents cannot be clearer that we must regain control of the budget process and strengthen our fiscal foundation for the long term.”

In addition to the poll results, the foundation also released the its latest Fiscal Confidence, which measures public opinion  about the national debt by asking six questions in three key areas:

CONCERN: Level of concern and views about the direction of the national debt.

PRIORITY: How high a priority addressing the debt should be for elected leaders.

EXPECTATIONS: Expectations about whether the debt situation will get better or worse in the next few years.

The survey results from these three areas are weighted equally and averaged to produce the Fiscal Confidence Index value. 

The Fiscal Confidence Index, like the Consumer Confidence Index, is indexed on a scale of zero to 200, with a neutral midpoint of 100. A reading above 100 indicates positive sentiment. A reading below 100 indicates negative sentiment.

On Thursday, the foundation said the Fiscal Confidence Index value for August is 38, down from 40 in July.

The index value was also 38 in June, but that was up from a value of 35 in May, which the foundation said was a record low.

The low reading in May also coincided with the high-stakes talks over raising the debt ceiling, but was measured before a deal between Congress and the White House was announced.

The current Fiscal Confidence Index score for CONCERN about the debt is 30, indicating deep concern about the debt, the foundation said.

The score for debt as a PRIORITY that leaders must address is 22, indicating that Americans want elected leaders to make addressing long-term debt a high priority. The score for EXPECTATIONS about progress on the debt is 62. The Fiscal Confidence Index is the average of these three sub-category scores.

The online poll included 1,013 registered voters nationwide, surveyed between Aug. 21, 2023, and Aug. 23, 2023. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.1%.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue