Poll: Most Americans oppose raising debt limit

CBS

CBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto.

Despite Obama administration warnings that failing to do so would devastate the economy, a clear majority of Americans say they oppose raising the debt limit, a new CBS News/New York Times poll shows.

Just 27 percent of Americans support raising the debt limit, while 63 percent oppose raising it.

Eighty-three percent of Republicans oppose raising the limit, along with 64 percent of independents and 48 percent of Democrats. Support for raising the debt limit is just 36 percent among Democrats, and only 14 percent among Republicans.

Seven in ten who oppose raising the debt limit stand by that position even if it means that interest rates will go up.

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Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has notified Congress that they will need to raise the debt limit from the current $14.3 trillion level in mid-May to early July for the United States to meet its current fiscal obligations.

Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, are demanding spending cuts in exchange for their votes to raise the debt ceiling. They seized on the recent Standard & Poor's warning that it could eventually lower its rating on U.S. debt "a wake-up call to those in Washington asking Congress to blindly increase the debt limit," in the words of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

If the debt limit is not raised, the United States could default on its bonds for the first time in history.* White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has suggested not raising it would be "a catastrophic folly."

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Mr. Obama actually voted against raising the debt limit when he was a senator, a decision the White House says he now regrets. In past years, Congress has regularly voted to increase the debt limit - though voting to do so has usually fallen to the party in power.

In addition to potentially increasing interest rates, a failure to raise the debt limit could delay for Social Security and Medicare checks ties to the government's inability to make payments to agencies. It would also mean the shutdown of much of the government.

While Republicans leaders are reportedly acknowledging behind closed doors that they will not let the United States fall into default, they are considering demanding everything from a balanced budget amendment to statutory spending caps to a 2/3rds voting requirement to increase taxes.

Even if the budget proposal passed by House Republicans were to become law, Congress would still need to raise the debt limit, since the Ryan plan steadily increases the debt over the next decade. Only a budget that eliminates - not reduces - the yearly budget deficit would halt the increase in the debt.

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PDF: Read the complete poll results

*Update, April 22, 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time: This post originally said "If the debt limit is not raised, the United States will default on its bonds for the first time in history." It now says "If the debt limit is not raised, the United States could default on its bonds for the first time in history." After the post went up, conservative commentator Erick Erickson suggested I was "either wrong or lying" by asserting that the U.S. will default if the debt limit is not raised.

As The Economist explained in January, "almost everyone takes it for granted that a failure to raise the debt ceiling will eventually force the United States to default on its Treasury debt." However, as that magazine points out, the government could potentially prioritize paying bond interest over other spending, such as Social Security payments, in order to avoid default. 

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This poll was conducted among a random sample of 1,224 adults nationwide, interviewed by telephone April 15-20, 2011. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups is higher. An oversample of Republicans was also conducted for this poll, for a total of 543 interviews among this group. The results were then weighted in proportion to the average party distributions in previous 2011 CBS News and CBS News/New York Times Polls and in the random sample in this poll. The margin of error for Republicans is plus or minus four percentage points.

[BigGrizzly55]

They say that your vote counts.......yea right, the majority wants are not important because the politicians think you're stupid and will make the decision for you.

[simpleconservative]

Let's sell some assets. Let's turn unproductive land owned by U.S. and State governments into tax producing private properties. We can pay off our debts and transform future economies with increased tax revenues. In addition private properties will not be neglected and allowed to degrade like government owned properties!

[slatep]

When I was growing up the words "silver certificate" appeared on all paper money.

This meant that you cold turn these paper beills in for silver if you wanted to.

It also meant that there was enough silver to pay off loans from different countries if they called the loans in.

Now, we have the "gold standard".

If this still means that there s enough gold in fort knox to back up our paper money, I suggest; since gold is now worth $1,503 dollars an ounce, we take this gold out of Fort Knox, pay off our loans to China and other countries to whom we owe multi-TRILLIONS of dollars and start over.

This way we are beholden to no one and can start rebuilding the value of the American dollar.

It just might jumpstart Congress and the Senate and stop them from fighting like a bunch of little kids because they are on different sides.

Just think how much good this would be for Americans if both parties if both parties were forced to face the fact that they are supposed to be doing what's best for the people of the US instead of what's good for themselves.

[joeyjr]

The only way to stop the congress from stealing our money and then make us pay for it, like increase of taxes, taking schools funding away form us and many more things, is to CHANGE THE CONSTITUTION BY US. They will keep on getting us in debt.

[gatekeep]

Americans have misplaced intentions when they oppose raising the debt limit. The limit has been raised under both parties controlling Congress and the White House. Even under the balanced budget of President Clinton (the only one since or before President Lyndon Johnson), we were still borrowing since the "surplus" in Social Security" was really Treasury Bonds to help cover the "real deficit". Democrats spend for individual welfare and Republicans spend for corporate welfare. The public can't expect to prevent raising the debt limit until the public asks in earnest for real cuts in spending - those spending programs from which they personally benefit. Anything less is literally a joke. The level of cuts I've proposed has not been suggested by either major party or the Tea Party.

[bulldogss]

Bankruptcy is fine. Why not walk away..First run-up the debt to 20 trill than default Why not? We can survive--they cannot

[hhandyman]

you can do that about as well as emptying the ocean of water one teaspoonfull at a time will take a while and a lot of spoons before you can dent it

[honest_pols]

OUR COUNTRY IS DIVIDED AND BREAKING UP BECAUSE OUR LEADERS ARE CROOKED,
AND WE ARE TOO SPOILED TO PERFORM PRODUCTIVE WORK OTHER THAN 'SERVICES'

Our crooked political leaders and most shamefully, our lawmakers who are in bed with Wall St investment banker/financier/parasites, essentially take and don't give fair shares of the 'money-power pie' back to the working people, as they continue to set bad and destructive examples to our younger generations.
America's lawyers in particular, many who are lawmakers, must be cut down to size, as they are largely responsible for converting what is supposed to be our legal/justice system into a game used for their and others' selfish, greedy, personal money and power ends.

In addition, our aforementioned leaders provide safe and clean lives, homes and jobs for themselves and their family members, while sending 'other' - mostly poor and non-white - young people to serve, lose limbs,get maimed, and die in the military, in order that they maintain their rich, luxurious, safe, parasitic lifestyles!

The corruption, selfishness, greed, and inconsideration of others, that is part and parcel of our leaders' lifestyles, must be brought to an end via education and re-socialization...
... or this country and its people have virtually no chance to achieve a safe, fair and just future.

It's long overdue to heavily tax the mostly non-productive, non-contributing WEALTHY, and waive taxation, road, bridge and tunnel tolls for the average working person!

[THIS ARTICLE WILL BE REPEATED UNTIL JUSTICE IS METED OUT TO WALL ST's AND THE CORPORATE WORLD's LEADERS, PRINCIPALS, BROKERS, INVESTMENT BANKERS, AND OTHER FINANCIER/PARASITES, ALONG WITH THEIR LAWYERS, ACCOUNTANTS, AND OTHER OF THEIR THEIR ACTORS AND AGENTS]

[honest_pols]

There are too many parasitic politicians and cheating swindling financiers in America.

We should put them to hard labor and lengthy prison terms for their ruining of our country!

[Mike_Dugas]

This is a lie. If the debt ceiling is not raised does not mean, as you say, "If the debt limit is not raised, the United States will default on its bonds for the first time in history." That's bs. The only way we default is if Obama TELLS Tim Geithner to default. The debt service, interest on our debt is about 6 percent of everything the federal government has to pay. So, we would be taking in enough revenue to cover more than ten times all the interest that we owe. There is no reason we would have to default on our interest obligations.