With automatic, across-the-board spending cuts set to begin Friday, majorities of Americans believe they aren’t a good idea and say the contentious budget negotiations make them less confident about the U.S. economy, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
Despite those findings, a majority still supports Congress moving ahead with either the current cuts or a plan containing even more cuts as a way to reduce the deficit, suggesting the public’s general appetite for reducing spending.
But the poll also shows that as the nation’s political actors once again quarrel over these automatic cuts totaling $1.2 trillion over 10 years – commonly referred to as sequestration or the sequester – President Barack Obama finds himself in a much stronger position than his Republican adversaries. [cont.]
Mark Murray, NBC News