@ISIDEWITHQuestionseconomyStarted 11yrs agoActive 7mos ago

Should the government make cuts to public spending in order to reduce the national debt?

Proponents of deficit reduction argue that governments who do not control budget deficits and debt are at risk of losing their ability to borrow money at affordable rates. Opponents of deficit reduction argue that government spending would increase demand for goods and services and help avert a dangerous fall into deflation, a downward spiral in wages and prices that can cripple an economy for years.

Answer Overview

Response rates from 6 South Africa voters.

17%
Yes
83%
No
0%
Yes
50%
No
17%
Yes, but by drastically reducing the benefits and salaries of government officials
33%
No, reduce the number of government officials instead
0%
Yes, and eliminate federal agencies that are unconstitutional
0%
No, cuts to public spending will negatively affect the economy
0%
Yes, and increase taxes
0%
No, focus on ending tax evasion instead
0%
No, reduce military spending instead
0%
No, increase taxes on the wealthy instead
0%
No, increase taxes on large multinational corporations instead

Historical Support

Trend of support over time for each answer from 6 South Africa voters.

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Historical Importance

Trend of how important this issue is for 6 South Africa voters.

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Other Popular Answers

Unique answers from South Africa voters whose views went beyond the provided options.

 @9QWP2KManswered…7mos7MO

Yes, but only in areas that are clearly not helping people, instead of just cutting anything that costs a bit of money

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 @ISIDEWITH submitted…2mos2MO

Trump Appoints Controversial Covid Critic Bhattacharya To National Institute of Health

President Trump announces the nomination of Dr Bhattacharya to Director of the National Institutes of Health.Bhattacharya has called for shifting the agency’s focus toward funding more innovative research and reducing the influence of some of its longest-serving career officials, among other ideas.Trump earlier this month selected Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees NIH and other health agencies. Kennedy has played a central role in choosing top health-care staff and deputies for the next administration, including Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgeon and writer whom Trump announced to lead the Food and Drug Administration, and Dave Weldon, an internal medicine physician and former GOP congressman whom Trump selected to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Bhattacharya emerged as a prominent critic of the federal government’s covid-19 response, co-writing an October 2020 open letter known as the Great Barrington Declaration that called for rolling back coronavirus-related shutdowns while keeping “focused protections” for vulnerable populations, such as older Americans. The proposal won support from Republican politicians and some Americans eager to resume daily life but was rebuked by public health experts, including then-NIH Director Francis S. Collins, as premature and dangerous as the covid-19 virus continued to spread and vaccines were not yet available.Bhattacharya has called for rolling back the power of some of the 27 institutes and centers that constitute NIH, saying that some career civil servants wrongly shaped national policies at the height of the pandemic and did not tolerate dissent. Bhattacharya and other critics have singled out Anthony S. Fauci, the infectious-disease expert who led one of NIH’s centers for 38 years and helped steer the nation’s coronavirus response before leaving the federal government in December 2022.Trump Appoints Controversial Covid Critic Bhattacharya To NIH

▲  188 replies

 @ISIDEWITH submitted…2wks2W

U.S. Bans Medical Debt from Credit Reports

The U.S. government on Tuesday issued new rules to remove roughly $49 billion in unpaid medical debts from Americans’ credit reports, even as debt collectors and incoming Republican leaders have signaled they might try to overturn the policy entering the Trump administration.The new prohibition targets credit-reporting companies, including Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, which assemble detailed dossiers about consumers that they furnish to banks, employers and landlords so that they can evaluate a person’s finances.Under the new policy, these credit reports can no longer include past-due medical bills, and companies that obtain a person’s credit history cannot evaluate their application based on outstanding medical debts. The regulation from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does not forgive any health-related debts.The agency estimated Tuesday that its rules would help about 15 million Americans, some of whom have been unable to obtain jobs, apartments, credit cards or mortgages if unavoidable medical debts appear as glaring, derogatory marks on their credit histories, lowering their scores.Many of these people carry medical debt despite having some form of health insurance. The CFPB said some of the past-due balances are actually erroneous, reflecting amounts already paid or greatly overstated totals compared to what a person actually owes.“People who get sick shouldn’t have their financial future upended,” Rohit Chopra, the agency’s director, said in a statement. “The CFPB’s final rule will close a special carveout that has allowed debt collectors to abuse the credit reporting system to coerce people into paying medical bills they may not even owe.”The CFPB rules are likely to draw sharp opposition from credit-reporting agencies and debt collectors, which blasted the agency last year when it first proposed the idea.

▲  1410 replies

 @ISIDEWITH submitted…18hrs18H

Democratic Party Panics as Social Media Gap Widens

Then there’s the Democrats’ own struggles, including the lack of a clear message or messenger to deliver it, according to interviews with dozens of lawmakers, campaign operatives and senior aides.“It’s not like everybody has surrendered,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, describing his party as being in a holding pattern as they engage in “cerebral” questions over the lessons learned from Trump victory.“People are sitting around in circles quietly talking about what the strategy ought to be,” he said. “Are there changes that we need to make? Do we hold Trump accountable on everything that we don’t like that he does? Or should we be selective?”As that messaging debate continues, Democrats are also grappling with how to play in a social media landscape they feel like they’ve fallen behind on.In a private Senate Democratic luncheon last week, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey led colleagues through the shifting dynamics of a media echo chamber that conservatives are thriving in. Democrats scoured examples of how conspiracy theories like one about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, spread rapidly in the conservative media sphere and how Democrats needed to try to harness their own tools to get their messages out better.One of the bright spots Democrats highlighted, according to a source familiar, was a viral video from the pandemic of Warner making a tuna melt in his kitchen that led to the lawmaker being cheered and jeered by people who questioned his culinary leanings.“The communications ecosystem has changed profoundly in ways that most people in their 60s and 70s don’t grasp,” one Democratic senator said of the message of the presentation.Senators talked about the need to repost each other’s social media posts to try and organically get their message out. But they also argued they can’t abandon traditional media altogether.At one point, a Democrat in the meeting asked if their party had their version of conservative influencers, according to a person who attended. Booker responded that the party didn’t have one.“They have a permanent information ecosystem. We don’t,” Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, said following the lunch. “They define us and we don’t get to define them. No matter how good our messaging is here, it doesn’t get reflected, reverberated and amplified like theirs does.”

▲  1316 replies