The political spending chasm

August 1, 2011

It's become painfully clear this Congress just how far apart the Democrats and Republicans are when it comes to, well, just about everything.

Nate Silver, who does what he calls political calculus at the New York Times' FiveThirtyEight blog, takes a look today at the spending cuts in the debt ceiling bill that's awaiting official Congressional approval.

As part of the discussion of the political semantics in the debt proposal, Silver offers a table detailing the views of Democratic and Republican adults toward spending cuts in 18 areas of federal spending as derived from the 2010 General Social Survey.

The scale runs from 0, meaning that survey respondents would like to see increased spending in that area, to 100, meaning that they would like to see spending cuts.

Fivethirtyeight-0801-fineprint-blog_spending cut preferences

No big surprises here, but it's nice to see it laid out in such a readable fashion.

And it's reassuring to see that there's at least one area upon which members of both parties agree, highways and bridges.

Now if both sides could only agree to share the same roads now and then.

Related posts:

Want to tell your friends about this blog post? Check out the buttons — Tweet, Reblog, Like, Digg This and more — at the bottom of this post. Or you can use the Share This icon to spread the word via email and other popular online avenues. Thanks!

Share:

The More Tax Posts tab at the top of this page will take you to, well, more tax posts. You also can search below for a tax topic. 

Latest Posts
The latest Dirty Dozen tax scam list is familiar because too many are still falling for the schemes

March 5, 2026

Tax filing season is also peak time for tax scams. Be on the lookout for…

Read More
Hello Tax Season 2026

Happy New Tax Year! Are you ready to file your 2025 tax return? I know, too early to ask. But Tax Day 2026 will be here before we realize it. The Internal Revenue Service deadline to file and pay any tax we owe is the regular April 15 date this year. It’s also Tax Day for most of the states that collect income taxes from their residents, which is most of the states! If that seems too far away right now, don’t worry. As is the case every tax season, the ol’ blog’s tips and other tax reminders should help all of us meet our state and federal responsibilities. Procrastinators also will want to keep an eye on the countdown clock just below. It tracks how much time we have until April’s Tax Day, just in case we put off our annual tax task until the absolutely final hours and decide we need to instead get an extension request into the IRS by that date. (Note: I’m in the Central Time Zone, so adjust accordingly for where you live.)

Comments
Leave the first comment