Mellman: Spending cuts and election losses

Seemingly oblivious to decades of poll data and campaign experience, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is allowing the far-right Freedom Caucus to lead his Republican Conference like lemmings over the cliff into political oblivion.  

 It’s one of the oldest, strongest and most consistent poll findings on record.   

Americans are happy to cut government spending in general, but adamantly oppose cuts in most all specific areas.    

 A few months ago, the Associated Press (AP) and the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) examined spending issues and found 60 percent of Americans saying the U.S. government was spending “too much.”   

 Presumably, that majority wants to pare federal outlays.  

 But which spending?  

 Just 29 percent say we are spending too much on the military. Little support for reductions there.   

Social Security and Medicare? Just 7 percent and 10 percent, respectively, believe too much is being spent on those programs.  

 “OK,” you say, “we’re hitting third rails.” True perhaps, but those three third rails, plus interest on the debt, account for over half of federal expenditures.    

 “What about some of President Biden’s favorites,” Republicans might argue. “Should be easy pickings there.”  

 But only 11 percent want reductions in infrastructure spending. Just 25 percent see too much spending on the environment and 20 percent on scientific research. Even fewer, 16 percent, say the same about assistance with child care.  

 “Surely,” GOPers say, “we can demagogue welfare.” But only 18 percent would curtail “aid to the poor” in the AP/NORC survey. In YouGov polling earlier this year, just 15 percent favored cutting Medicaid, 17 percent would cut SNAP, only 16 percent supported cuts to Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and the same small number favored cutting Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.   

 So, no, voters don’t want to scale down those safety net programs.   

Only 12 percent would countenance cuts to education spending and, GOP efforts to demonize law enforcement notwithstanding, just 23 percent favor reductions there.    

My apologies for the long recitation of numbers, but I hope the point is clear. While voters want to cut government spending generally, large majorities oppose cuts in almost every specific category.   

 Yet, catering to the demands of the Freedom Caucus, McCarthy will force every House Republican to vote for massive spending cuts in each and every one of these programs, alienating the vast majority of Americans.  

 Republican appropriators already proposed cutting education by over $22 billion, which would mean firing 220,000 teachers across the country, increasing class sizes. In addition, they’re cutting over a billion dollars from STEM education.   

 To say voters will be angry about such reductions puts it mildly.  

 Unlike Democrats, Republicans are actually defunding the police, eliminating $1 billion from the FBI, which means fewer agents and federal prosecutors, which means fewer criminals brought to justice.   

 The GOP is backing a nearly 40 percent, $4 billion cut to the Environmental Protection Agency, which translates into fewer resources to clean up the Great Lakes, the Chesapeake Bay and Long Island Sound, as well as less assistance for clean drinking water across the country.   

 Republicans are cutting cancer research, mental health support and preschool.    

GOP House members will end up voting for these or similar cuts because McCarthy first surrendered to the Freedom Caucus on the debt limit negotiations and then gave them license to cut even more, after the deal was complete.   

 But Republicans are unlikely to stop with votes to slash crowd-pleasing spending. At the insistence of the far right, the GOP will likely shut down the government to force these unpopular cuts.   

 That’s what happened in 1996, and Democrats won races as a result.   

 That year we campaigned against the GOP shutdown and for preventing Republican cuts to Medicare, education and the environment. The result: 18 Republicans lost their seats to Democratic challengers, while only three Democrats were defeated.   

Far fewer would flip the House in 2024.  

 Circumstances and context have changed, but Republicans seem intent on following the far right down the same path toward defeat in response to their effort to slash popular spending.

Mellman is president of The Mellman Group and has helped elect 30 U.S. senators, 12 governors and dozens of House members. Mellman served as pollster to Senate Democratic leaders for over 20 years, as president of the American Association of Political Consultants, a member of the Association’s Hall of Fame, and is president of Democratic Majority for Israel.