National Survey Finds Americans Favor a Federal Budget Completely Different from the One Congress is Developing

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Jun 25, 2025, 11:34 ET

Bipartisan majorities favor higher not lower taxes on the wealthy, cutting defense spending not increasing it, no cuts to Medicaid, reducing deficit not increasing it

COLLEGE PARK, Md., June 25, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- As the outlines of a Congressional budget bill have become clearer, a new survey, in which a representative sample of Americans were able to propose their own detailed budget, finds that the majority of Americans favor a budget that differs dramatically from Congress'. While the changes proposed in the Congressional budget bill would substantially increase the projected deficits (according to the Congressional Budget Office), the changes the public proposes would substantially reduce them.

In the survey, conducted by the Program for Public Consultation (PPC) of the School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, the overall majority reduced the current deficit by $703 billion, Republicans by $492 billion and Democrats by $737 billion. Majorities of Republicans and Democrats agreed on changes that resulted in $463 billion of deficit reduction. In all cases, more than 90 percent of deficit reductions were derived from tax increases, together with modest reductions in spending.

"When Americans are given the chance to propose their own federal budget there is an enormous difference between what they want, which would reduce the deficit, and what is currently being proposed in Congress and the White House, which would increase it." commented PPC Director Steven Kull. "Furthermore, unlike in Congress, there is a remarkable amount of bipartisan agreement on key issues from raising taxes on the wealthy to limiting defense spending."

In the interactive online survey, respondents were given the opportunity to set their own federal spending and tax levels. As they made their choices they got immediate feedback about the effect on the deficit. They were presented and able to modify spending levels for the main 32 areas of the discretionary budget, Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). They were also presented the revenue effects of increasing or decreasing tax rates for various income levels (including by reverting rates back to pre-2017 levels), as well as other current proposals for reforming taxes, and were able to select their preferred options.

The biggest discrepancy between the public's preferred budget and the emerging Congressional budget bill is in regard to taxes on high incomes. While the Congressional bill calls for extending the 2017 tax cuts for all incomes, the majority of Americans only did so for incomes below $200,000. For higher incomes, the public raised tax rates by reverting them to pre-2017 tax cut levels, reducing the deficit by $266 billion.

Bipartisan majorities of at least six-in-ten made other revenue changes that would fall on the wealthy, including taxing long-term capital gains for income over $200,000 the same as ordinary income (generating $164 billion in new revenue). An overwhelming majority (78%, Republican 72%, Democrats 83%) adopted a new wealth tax of 2% on wealth in excess of $50 million and 3% on wealth over $1 billion (generating $200 billion)

Defense spending is another major discrepancy. While Congress is headed for major increases to the defense budget of about $150 billion, a majority of Americans recommend cutting the core defense budget by $60 billion. Republicans cut it by $10 billion. And as Congress is planning to increase funding for homeland security by more than $30 billion a year, mostly for immigration enforcement, the public recommended cutting it by $1 billion, with Republicans recommending no change.

While the Congressional budget bill would make substantial cuts to Medicaid of about $80 billion a year, a majority of Americans (54%) kept Medicaid spending the same or increased it, including 63% of Democrats and 57% of independents. Republicans (55%) recommended reducing it by $8 billion.

While Congress and the White House have proposed nonmilitary foreign aid far below the levels of the previous administration, the public made no cuts to humanitarian aid or global health aid and only trimmed development assistance by $1 billion. Republicans made cuts of $4 billion in total to aid programs.

On the other hand, two proposals to reduce tax burdens that have been proposed by Congress and the White House are favored by bipartisan majorities. Removing taxes on overtime pay was favored by a bipartisan majority of 56% (Republicans 60%, Democrats 53%), while removing taxes on tips was favored by 63% (Republicans 66%, Democrats 60%).

Several other proposals from the White House, that have not been adopted in the Congressional bills so far, are not supported by the public.

While the White House has proposed reducing funding for medical and science research, in part by cutting the National Institute of Health by $8 billion and the National Science Foundation by $5 billion, the majority of Americans did not recommend any spending cuts to such research. Among Republicans, a bare majority recommended cutting science research by just $3 billion (out of a $28 billion budget).

While the White House has proposed reducing the corporate tax rate from 21% to 20%, and to 15% for corporations that manufacture in the U.S., just one quarter of Americans (24%) recommended lowering the corporate tax rate, including just 29% of Republicans and 19% of Democrats. The majority (58%) recommend increasing it enough to raise $41 billion in new revenue.

Questionnaire with Toplines, Crosstabs and Methodology

About the Survey
The survey was a "public consultation survey" in which respondents are provided briefings and arguments for and against proposals. Content was reviewed by experts from each side of the debate to ensure that the briefings are accurate and balanced and that the arguments presented are the strongest ones being made.

The survey was fielded May 30 - June 16, 2025 with 1,214 adults nationally. Samples were obtained from multiple online opt-in panels, including Cint, Dynata and Prodege. Sample collection and quality control was managed by QuantifyAI under the direction of the Program for Public Consultation. Samples were pre-stratified and weighted by age, race, gender, education, income, geographic region, marital status, and home ownership to match the general adult population. The survey was also weighted by partisan affiliation. The survey was offered in both English and Spanish. The confidence interval is +/- 3.0% and the response rate for the sample was 8.6%.

CONTACT: Taylor Ancell, [email protected]

SOURCE Program for Public Consultation