Paul Steinhauser
CNN Deputy Political Director
Washington (CNN) – A majority of Americans want congressional lawmakers to seek compromise to avoid a government showdown, according to two new national polls.
But the surveys both indicated that there's a partisan divide, with Democrats and independent voters urging compromise while many Republicans are telling their lawmakers to stick to their guns, even if it leads to a shutdown of some government services and offices.
Fifty-eight percent of people questioned in a Gallup poll released Wednesday said they want the members of Congress who represent them to agree to a compromise budget plan, even if that means a budget they disagree with is passed, with one in three saying that their lawmakers should hold out for the plan they support, even if it leads to a government shutdown.
Recent surveys by the Pew Research Center, the Washington Post, CNN/Opinion Research Corporation and CBS had similar findings.
But most those polls, as well as the two new surveys, indicated a partisan divide.
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Filed under: 360° Radar • 360º Follow |
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Nobody wants to see a shutdown, but I personally don't want to see a compromise either – for the sake of our country and my children. Tough times, tough choices. Subsidies; entitlements... They've GOT to go. Government's role should not be to coddle us from cradle to grave, but rather to create a strong framework from which we can make our own way, and live our lives.
Isn't it ironic – if funding is continued for the military, at least – that a shutdown would put it closer to the Constitutional definition of what the Federal Government was intended to be in the first place?
And about the (tired) point that the Democrats should have passed a budget when they were in control of the Congress – thank God they didn't! Can you imagine what it would have been without opposition?!
I was wondering why the GOP don't shutdown all the goverment , as well as shut down the funding for wars the former president George Bush started with help of GOP costing more than $six trilon.
I have the answer; retract those tax breaks for the very rich. I don't recall the huge amount that would generate but surely it would contribute a nice chunk toward a compromise. Besides, a wealthy person puts all their excess money into investments. While the rest of us spend what we have to put food on our tables and clothes on our backs – and that generates even more tax revenue.