Thank goodness South Carolina Representative James Clyburn is on the Super Committee otherwise the results of a recent poll might not get to his fellow Committee members.
A just released Winthrop University poll has found that 73.2% of South Carolina Republican or Republican-leaning voters receiving Social Security or Medicare do not want those benefits cut to reduce the national deficit. Of the same group who are not receiving those benefits 53.6% don’t want those programs cut. And 52.9% of all of these South Carolina GOP voters do not want the defense budget lowered for deficit reduction.
A plurality in this Republican-only voter’s survey, 46.6%, said that it is not possible to address the deficit problem without a tax increase.
If protecting Social Security, Medicare and defense by increasing revenue to reduce the deficit is OK here in South Carolina, the Super Committee’s job should be easier than we thought it would be.