Here’s some fun findings from the Washington Post’s latest poll. By a margin of 48-45, voters say it’s more important for the federal government to “spend money to try to encourage job creation” than it is to try to hold down the budget deficit. And by a narrow 46-45 margin, voters say they prefer President Obama’s approach to taxes over Mitt Romneys.
So naturally by a margin of 52-42, they say that Romney will “do a better job of handling the federal budget deficit.”
A valuable reminder that whatever “the federal budget deficit” is in the hazy world of public opinion, it’s not the accounting document driven by federal tax policy (on which Obama is preferred) and federal spending (on which the public is closer to Obama). It’s something else.
