Chart of the Day: Reducing the Federal Deficit

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Via Plain Blog, this is from a poll conducted by Emily Swanson and Mark Blumenthal:

According to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, 69 percent of Americans think that most of the federal budget deficit could be eliminated by cutting “waste and fraud.”

Um, what? More than two-thirds of Americans think the budget deficit is largely a result of waste and fraud? But wait! It’s all explained by a deeper dive into the poll results:

A more detailed look at which programs were named by Democrats and by Republicans suggests that for many, waste is indeed defined as “money spent on some government program I don’t like.”

So there you have it. By logical concatenation, two-thirds of the American public think the budget deficit could be tamed largely by cutting spending on programs they don’t like. That’s a little more defensible. Now all we have to do is figure out which programs a majority of us don’t like.1

1Hint: There aren’t any.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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