Photograph by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Corbin J. Shea/Navy Media Content Services via Bloomberg
Aviation ordnanceman practice color guard drills aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) in the Atlantic Ocean on Feb. 15, 2013.
The public apparently has little sympathy for complaints about the across-the-board cutting ordered in most discretionary federal spending.
The public is more concerned, a poll shows, about the cuts in Defense spending.
By a margin of 61 percent to 33 percent, people surveyed by ABC News and the Washington Post support the non-defense budget cutting that started Friday.
By a nearly identical margin, ABC reports, they oppose the cut in military spending.
The poll run by Langer Research Associates found support for the non-defense cuts among Democrats (57 percent) and Republicans (75 percent) as well — while opposition to the defense cuts ran 73 percent among Republicans and split Democrats “down the middle.”
This would appear to place little pressure on Congress to restore much of the cuts as it writes a spending plan for the remainder of the fiscal year ending in September. Yet it would also tend to support a move in Washington to give the Pentagon more discretion over how the cuts are implemented, rather than requiring them across the board.
That work starts today in the House, with a March 27 deadline for writing a new budget.
