Americans debate government shutdowns, spending priorities

With a potential government shutdown just hours away, we asked our panel of American voters to weigh in. Whether they think a shutdown is a good or bad idea whether they think a shutdown will impact them personally or not, at home to the credit or blame.
I’m Dr. Frank Luntz. And
this is a very special topical America speaks right here on straight arrow news.
I don’t think anybody wants a shutdown. Think for one moment what a shutdown does stops paying our troops? How do you have more leverage in that situation? I’ve watched shutdown after shutdown, everybody lives on it. And the only way you’re able to achieve that is to pass the appropriation bills that we passed out of committee. That’s why we’ve been working so hard.
The deal that allowed speaker McCarthy to have this role required single subject spending bills, and this continuing resolution violates that deal. I’m working to assemble a coalition against this continuing resolution. I think it’s bad for the country continues. The inflationary spending, the waste, the failure,
we’re running a $2 trillion deficit, we’re not fighting a war, we’re not in a pandemic, that
hurts everybody. That is crazy. Our members recognize that. So we have members who want to do more spending cuts makes total sense to me.
But we need the extreme Magga Republicans to get their act together in the Civil War. That’s happening on the Republican side of the aisle. That’s paralyzing Congress, get your act together. So we can handle the business of the American people and solve problems on their behalf.
By the time this airs, it’s very possible that the government will be in the middle of a shutdown. First thing I want to know is, is that a good thing or a bad thing for America? By show of hands? How many of you say it’s a good thing? 123 of you, four of you. How many of you say it’s a bad thing? How many more of you? Could I get two of you to tell me why it’s a good thing. And two of you to tell me why it’s a bad thing. Yeah, our
government’s out of control right now. I mean, the spending with Ukraine to, you know, the immigrants and flying them, you know, helping flying them all over the place until the hurricane, or the relief in Hawaii or putting up female workers and, you know, 1000 $2,000 resorts, you know, the federal government and they’re, you know, spying the time just to stop it. I mean, it’s not a good thing. But it’s time to put an end to all this stuff. And just take a breath and read reformulate the budget.
Okay, who disagrees with John, speak up? Tell me why.
I think that I mean, I’m very close to DC. I have a lot of friends who work in the federal government and, you know, adjacent industries, and it affects all their livelihoods when there’s a government shutdown, not to mention, it’s just another sign of things not working properly in government. It’s been going on for over a decade now. And it’s absurd and obscene that people can’t just pass a budget. We can deal with raising or lowering spending. But this is not the way to do it.
Joy. This is the dance that they play that they do every year. We’re going to have a shutdown, we’re not going to have a shutdown. They and especially during election years, I think it would be good to stop it because frankly, I think the hacks who has they have the purse strings. Should Sam pat on cutting some of these that some of these overspending we have a horrible, horrible national. I’m not talking deficit, I’m talking national debt. Our grandkids, our great grandkids are never going to get rid of that. Because of all this. We have stopped what
do you think it’s wildly irresponsible. And like Andrew, I’m originally from the DC metro area. And I have plenty of family members that are a part of our federal government and had federal jobs. And so of course, I want them to still get paid. A lot of them are immediate family members. But what’s also wildly irresponsible is our national debt, which has been raising up over the past few administrations, both Republican and Democrat. So at some point, we do have to take a pause and say, Okay, what are we doing? We need to reassess things and what what better is the time to now?
raise fees is shut down a good thing or bad thing?
Oh, um, it’s a it’s a bad thing. Um, it’s just sort of an emblem of the fact that, you know, our Congress just is completely dysfunctional. It’s like, basically like you guys have one job, and you can’t even do that. And you know, I think in response to another person’s comment, I think it’s it’s, you know, to just be reflexive and say, Oh, we’re gonna shut it all down because I don’t like what they’re doing with Ukraine and immigrants and all that stuff. Is the answer really to just say, Yeah, let’s shut it down. I don’t think that’s the right thing to do.
Thomas, what is the right thing to do?
The right thing to do is they need to get back in there and have a compromise and work on it. As much as I would prefer party over. I mean, country over politics, it’s these politicians are just trying to position themselves but they need to get back in there and work together because it hurts the working class people that hurts Americans.
We what do we do keep that open or shut it down?
I think you have to shut it down, taking a motion aside, and what’s would be the right thing to do. Financially speaking, they were broke. And just putting another band aid to spend more money is just fiscally, what got us in this first place. So you got to take a motion aside and say, Now, we got to shut it down and get back in there both parties and make this work,
make it work. Badly.
setting down is not the answer. Yes, we have to really reevaluate fiscally what we’re doing what we’re spending money on. I live in California, we have a huge homeless crisis right now. So shutting down, the government helps nobody, both sides needs to come together, work something out
from Georgia.
Now, I totally agree with everybody. I mean, I think that it’s I don’t think we should shut down the government. But I don’t think we can keep on going the way we’re going. I mean, we need we’ve got to stop these bills that have all this porque in them and all these expenses that I’m not going to vote unless you put this in it, no, I’m not going to vote if you don’t keep that in there. And they need to come together. And they need to say we need to do something for the country. Not for our you know, not a bridge in Maryland or, you know, fill up a swamp land in Georgia, whatever it needs to be about keeping the government open, keeping it functional. But coming to a compromise.
When it comes to Washington spending. When is Enough, enough? Or more accurately? Is it ever enough? Is there anything the American people would cut? And would that be enough? Let’s listen in.
variously we say that they should all work together. What are you going to cut? I need to know how if you saying that spending is such a problem, which almost all of you do. What are we going to cut joy to start with you?
If you look at what we actually spend from year to year, the largest part is actually money to service the debt. The next largest part is Social Security and Medicare after that, then you have everything else
that just doesn’t answer my question. I know, I know the answer. When I get a cut, you just give me a listing of what they spend Joy,
I would I would start with examining Social Security and Medicare. And that that’s not a very popular answer. But I would I would look at that first.
Okay, I’m going to do this differently. I’m not going to choose I want you to to run this group for the next five minutes. You are all how you’re going to cut spending? Your I
think this is an unpopular answer. I think it’s an unpopular answer. But I agree with joy, we do have to look at entitlements. And I think we obviously have to do it in a holistic way a humane way. We can’t be talking about people that are reaching the eligibility age for these types of programs. But we ought to automatically know that people like me, I’m 26 years old, are not gonna be able to receive these benefits. We keep on the spinning trajectory that we’re going down. So we have to look at entitlements of course, can we look at ways that we can make the military more effective, like Sam was talking about? Yes, it’s a sacred cow. Yeah, there are things that we can be streamlining, of course, but we know that our entitlement spending is our largest amount of spending from our government. And we have to, we have to hit that head on.
There’s a lot of things to cut. One of them I would consider is cutting aid to a lot of the countries that we don’t need to be in there. And I’m sure we can argue back and forth as to which country but that would be one line item that I would definitely encourage them to do. And that’s a lot of money.
No, it’s not a lot of money. That’s a tiny amount of money.
And I think worldwide.
I think basically I think Cut military doesn’t need to be to zero. Obviously, we need a defense, you know, budget. But, you know, as one, as one speaker said, I forgot. But, you know, they they were right. You know, we raised we actually raised the military budget like virtually every year, you know, like clockwork, but also raise taxes, raise taxes on the rich. For the crying out loud. We’re getting corporate tax cuts left and right. And, you know, there there are billionaires, billionaires out there, they could buy anything they could buy countries, we could stem we could, you know,
what about entitlements? What about
the rich, you don’t believe
you honestly, because we could, we could taxed our richest corporations to 100% our belly, our millionaires and billionaires 200%, we would still wouldn’t solve the problem. We have to be real. That’s we have to be real. That’s we have to touch entitlements we do for people like me, and you we have to, we have to cut
entitlements. So we will get them in the future? I think that doesn’t that doesn’t square
I have a problem with us calling them entitlements. You know, I’m, you know, closer to retirement age, I paid into that system my whole life. Some of that money is my money, too. And I don’t, you know, calling them entitlements make makes it seem like, you know, kind of back to the days of welfare queens or something. You know, that’s, that’s I, I’ve paid into that system my whole life.
Like Andrew said, I’m 36 I’ve, I’ve paid a lot in Social Security each month, but I’m just gonna, I’m assuming at this point that yeah, it’s not gonna be there when I’m older. I’m assuming I’m just going to assume that I’m not going to get anything back from what happened in
Georgia, how are we going to solve this?
I think it would be a good start to just I mean, we all have budgets for our household. I mean, and we can’t just spend money we don’t have and so I, while I agree with, you know, the idea of maybe, you know, cutting the military and cutting entitlements and etc, etc. I think we need to look at everything, you know, absolutely everything, whether it’s a tiny thing, like spent sending money to other countries, or if it’s a big thing like the military, we can’t do that in our own house.
When the US government is not a household, though, it’s it’s very different structures, such like, I totally do say that they want to run it like a business. The US government is not a business either. It’s a very different type of
it’s not a household. It’s not a house on Andrew, but we do like any household, look at priorities, and everything that we spend money on is not a priority. I don’t think we I think we can all agree on that. Sure.
I don’t see any solutions here. I don’t see any sacrifices here. How can we blame the politicians for not working together? When I don’t hear it from the voters themselves? These are from Wisconsin. Am I wrong? Am I too hard on you all?
You’re not wrong? It’s a complicated matter. And I think we need to cut and reevaluate across the board, including funds going to states, states need to pick up more of the tab on transportation and other issues like Medicare, Medicaid and their local programs.
I really, am I too harsh on you,
as you can get a little bit. I think the problem is very nuanced and multileveled. What I think we have agreed on is it just doesn’t make sense to delete one line item. It’s very unrealistic. I know a lot of people have said cut Medicare cut Social Security, like Tracy noted, they’ve earned it, they deserve it. We need to go line by line on the Appropriations and make sure that we’re trimming the fat. Let’s see where a little adjustments can be made. And hopefully that can add up to something that’s substantial for everybody.
John, I know you’re on the conservative side badly. I know you’re on the progressive side, John Dukes except what Beverly just said.
To a point, I mean, I think what we need to do is go through the budget and entitlement programs, to me is not Social Security and Medicare. Those are programs people earn I’m talking about entitlements, food stamps, Medicaid, and if we spent as much time you know, getting more IRS agents and putting those people in those areas, and investigating and looking at, where’s the abuse, we’re gonna find lots and lots of money right there, plus the pork barrel spending projects that these congressmen and, you know, senators, if we knew what was in this bill, in the budget, what they’re trying to pass, it’d be shocking. It’s just not it’s just a lot of pork. And that all needs to be cut out. But you know, nobody wants the truth is nobody wants to do anything about it, because it can affect Have them touching Medicare and Social Security is political suicide, and never be elected again. If you cut defense spending, that’s political suicide, these politicians are afraid to deal with it. So instead, we either, you know, go to the government shutdown or go to a brink of it, but then the day they’ll come together and figure something out. Because, I mean, we can’t keep the government closed forever. I mean, again, I think to hurt the Republicans probably by doing it. This is political suicide. I mean,
I think this is the first time I’ve agreed with John today. What I did like that, he said, was to pinpoint the abuses of certain institutions. And let’s see how we can clean that up and save some money, not to say that they should be deleted completely. But let’s reform it. So it really gets to the people who really need the help.
so badly, don’t you think they did that the last time they had this government shutdown, don’t you think? No, that’s did it?
No, I think a band aid was put on it. And that’s why we’re in the same position we are right now.
You all agree with that? Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. It’s the continuing resolution, right? It’s, you know, just kicking the can down the road, and nobody wants to legislate. Nobody wants to make a decision. You know, they should have the smartest people in the room to help write these laws. But I mean, a lot of them are bonkers. A lot of them don’t care to hear anything. It’s it’s it’s just kicking the can down the road.
allottee.
And this is probably unpopular, but I think it worked. And it’s factual that it worked. Back when President Obama was in office, I think it was Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell came up with the sequestration bill that just cut things across the board if Congress can get their act together. And I think that’s what we just have to do. If we can’t come to a resolution, we have to cut everything. That’s what we’re talking about. Everything needs to be looked at. And we might have to look put everything on the table if Congress can’t get their act together.
For the last few minutes, we simply talked about federal spending. And what about taxes? What taxes would you raise to the so called rich pay their fair share? And what exactly is that so called fair share? What do hardworking American taxpayers really think? Well, let’s find out. Okay, speaking,
everything on the table. What about let’s go back to the issue of tax increases, Thomas have already raised taxes as a way to address this debt.
I totally agree we should raise taxes when we should raise it like someone had mentioned before, on the millionaires and the billionaires who didn’t have them pay their fair share. There should be no reason why there’s probably 1000 people in the country with a billion dollars donated a tax and because that’s more than the money they’ll overspend on their life. Tax the billionaires just like Bernie Sanders said, Hey, tax him, they don’t need all that money.
Joy respond.
I’m sorry, but I’ve done the math. We’ve done the math on that. Even if you tax all the billionaires and everything. They don’t, they don’t take care of the national debt.
It’s a start. It’s a start. It’s a place to start.
And also, they leave the country.
There you go. You’re very right. I’m a fiscal conservative, and I work in Finance. I mean, eat the rich, it sounds great, but it will not solve all our problems. We need a stratified reform. There’s a lot of people in this country that paid zero tax and receive a lot of benefits. Why are we not talking about that?
About 50% of the people who file pay nothing in taxes?
What percent joy?
Approximately half of the people.
So who? Okay, so let’s stay on this tax thing. Who should? If you could cut or you can increase taxes, we need a solution here. What do we do? Louis should be raising taxes?
Absolutely not. That’s the most ludicrous thing you can say Not you. But is is to increase taxes, we should cut the spending as you would in your own household. If you’re, if you’re spending too much you cut down on your on your bills to maximize that taxing something is just putting a bandaid and it’s just not fiscally right. To do that to our country and to the people that work hard enough to get tax more. It’s I think it’s crazy.
Go ahead, somebody. I will say
that, you know, to that point, that we Yes, we might be overtaxed in some ways. I think we can get taxed more. But I think that I think the thing is, is you know, we’d live in a country one of the wealthiest countries in the world, if not be wealthier. And what benefits are we seeing from that? We’d see countries over in Europe, we see Amsterdam, we see all these these wonderful countries that are treating their their citizens. So well, they they get better, they get benefits, they’re happy, they’re fed, they have health care, they get, you know, pharmaceuticals, you know, it’s I’m not saying Wonderland, but what are we getting from being taxed? I want to see, you know, benefits, I want to see an increase, you know, an increase in, you know, the happiness of our people. This is the
this is the point that keeps coming up is like, I get that if with income disparity in this country that if you’re in the top point 1%, then yes, absolutely. Like, there, there will be a requirement that you pay more. Similarly speaking, that for the middle class, or the lower middle class, it hurts when every single cent comes out of your account. And so to that end, we are not saying that you need to tax everybody more, we’re taxing a population that can arguably afford it. But then also, we need to be smarter about how we spend, and this is the thing that is missing from this dialogue, is that it’s a one or the other. No, it is a both. And where is there space to have that conversation find me find me a politician that will be willing to talk about talk about it in that way?
I believe the top what two to 3%? are rich folks or whoever, why don’t pay taxes? Okay. So you’re gonna be taxing the middle class. So what is the number? What is PACs the rich are taxed more? Or who you’re going to tax more? What’s the what’s the bracket we’re looking at here? We talked about all axing, but what’s the bracket? Somebody’s throwing out a number? What’s the number? Do I like that number
from the start and go up? 1020 grand a month that’s playing.
Talking about the difference between 250,000 and people that are making millions of dollars
in taxes?
No, they don’t. But let’s look at the people. That’s a problem. Right? Start there, start and that is not paying taxes? Because God knows we are. So
let’s start there.
And I think it’s just very, I think just when I hear people say, well, the billionaires aren’t paying taxes. So what about us, we’re going to be the ones that’s so defeated, we can we can initiate that we can we can cause them to have to pay, yes, some of them will leave the country or fundamenta, you know, you know, born islands or whatever. It’s somewhere in some bank somewhere. But there is a lot more we can do to tax the wealthy than we are doing now. And I’ll get rid of it because they fund their their they fund their campaigns and you know, their rate of feminine control. Massive news organizations are free to do
this misconception come from that the rich don’t get tax or they don’t pay taxes. That is absolutely false. I think what you’re trying to say is they that they don’t pay enough. But let’s not also take off the table that they’re also creating jobs in this country, which helps the economy. So let this discussion be more balanced.
That’s not what Donald Trump said on the stage with Hillary Clinton.
I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m not talking about Hillary Clinton, I’m talking about fats.
I don’t buy that, that if they’re taxed more, they’re going to hire less people.
I didn’t say that. I said the misconception that they don’t pay taxes, they do pay taxes, I work in Finance, they pay a light,
they could pay more, they can definitely afford it.
The top tax rate back in the 40s 50s and 60s was what in the 70s 80s. At one point, it was like 90 something percent. The top tax rate now is 37%. So that number could be raised quite a bit.
Okay. Why not raise taxes on the top 1%?
It kills jobs. Yeah.
That doesn’t kill jobs. No, it just
does. Those people, that the people, the billionaires, the multimillionaires, they’re the ones who put their their wealth towards new ventures creating jobs for people. You
know, I think that that, you know, that might have used to have been true maybe a long time ago, but that’s not true. Now. There’s so much corporate greed. That’s not where I mean,
oh, there economics is that actually changed in several years,
where those people are spending their money. They’ve got you know, hundreds of 1000s billions of dollars in COVID money. Where did that go? You know, we I think that thinking about like some sort of corporate benevolence and some sort of trickle down economics, I think is that’s been proven to not happen. Those people are thinking and they’re running, they’re not turning it back. Why? Why is there such income inequality? Then? Why do people work at McDonald’s and can’t even make a living for their family? These are working poor, who cannot afford to live in America? Corporations, you know, heads of corporations who are making an, you know, billions of dollars and you think that that’s okay.
Maybe because they studied and educated themselves to put themselves in that position?
Yeah, no, I studied, and I’m educated. And I think all a bunch of us here are does that mean that we should just automatically be, you know, granted billions of dollars? I don’t think it works that way.
Your member of Congress is sitting here right now. They have to decide what they’re going to do? Do they pass a continuing resolution to keep the government functioning? Or do they vote to shut the government down? What should they do and why I’m gonna call on each one of you to give me your best advice to your member of Congress. Lisa from Wisconsin, we’ll start with you.
Continuing Resolution only because shutting down the government hurts the poorest, including Social Security and seniors and our disabled veterans.
Lisa from Georgia.
I think I would vote not to shut it down. But I also think it would be good idea to put some type of limit like let’s we’re going to figure something out in the next six weeks and say we have a spending problem. Taxing billionaires is not going to fix the problem. I’m not saying it’s not part of the solution. But it’s got to be what’s got to be a give and take on cutting spending
from Tennessee.
Yeah, pass a resolution
because
because shutting down the government has bad consequences that mostly fall on everyday people. We’re the people that suffer are the people that work in federal, the federal government.
That relief in California,
um, it’s time to roll up the sleeves and get to work. Shutting Down is not an option. This is why they were voted in to advocate and work hard for the people. So if that means sleepless nights, if that means getting on the phone, doing what you need to do get it done.
And you from Maryland
can you be resolution? Absolutely, you know, shutdowns hurt a lot of people it hurts the country. It keeps us less prepared. And it has never worked before. They want to change this before never worked. Don’t work.
Go in there deal negotiate and never surrender because we’d be giving up when the American people they need to fight for this budget here no matter how difficult it is. Be the person to cross the side the other aisle and make it happen. Alright, to do what by to go ahead and negotiate and try to get above our budget try to get something passed. So the government does not shut down here because there’s too much at stake here. The elections coming up. There’s Ukraine there’s people homeless and stuff like that they need to get in there and fight they’re fighting for the US were their employees were the ones that pay their salaries. They need to get in there and take care of the American people that wants their constituents to Canada got to put their little pettiness been signs themselves here and get in there and negotiate. That’s why we elected them into office work. But the other side,
what you just heard is a conversation happening in living rooms all across America. And right here, only on straight arrow news. I’m Dr. Frank Luntz. Have a great day. If you can