Americans Reject Keyensian Economics

Fri, 02/05/2010 - 1:45pm | posted by Doug Mataconis

Once again, there is more common sense on Main Street than Pennsylvania Avenue:

While influential 20th Century economist John Maynard Keynes would say it’s best to increase deficit spending in tough economic times, only 11% of American adults agree and think the nation needs to increase its deficit spending at this time. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 70% disagree and say it would be better to cut the deficit.

In fact, 59% think Keynes had it backwards and that increasing the deficit at this time would hurt the economy rather than help.

To help the economy, most Americans (56%) believe that cutting the deficit is the way to go.

Eighty-three percent (83%) of Americans, in fact, say the size of the federal budget deficit is due more to the unwillingness of politicians to cut government spending than to the reluctance of taxpayers to pay more in taxes.

Now if we could only get some of that wisdom to Washington.

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Tagged: Deficit Spending John Maynard Keynes Keynesian Economics Keynesianism

Look, I understand your point and agree that huge deficit spending is stupid. But come on. The vast majority of Americans have never even had a basic economics class, let alone understand Keyensian theories. They don’t know *why* any of this is good or bad. They only know that we’re in a financial meltdown, and the government keeps pouring in more money.

The last paragraph is really the only worthwhile stat.