A total of 69 percent of the Tea Partiers say that reducing the federal government, cutting spending or both should be the goal of their movement. When the NYT asked them whether Social Security and Medicare were worth the money spent, however, 62 percent said yes. Since I doubt that they want to cut military spending either, that means that even the new “radical Right” wants to leave a majority of the federal budget untouched.
Does that mean they would take an ax to the other half? Though there are no polls on whether these activists think that Washington spends too much money on highways, education or veterans' benefits, I seriously doubt it.
So while “cutting spending” and “reducing the size of government” are nice buzz words for those who are mad at the world, it doesn’t appear that there is actually any widespread support for even trying to achieve those goals. Give the American public five years and it’ll be “Get your government hands off my Obamacare!”
