Democrats seem willing to tolerate a lot to get a larger government, but Republicans aren’t much better

Americans think government is wasteful when it’s not outright fraudulent and abusive. That should create a welcoming environment for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and its mission to cut fat out of federal agencies on the way to (hopefully) reducing the state and balancing the budget. But support for DOGE is lukewarm. Unsurprisingly in these politically fractured times, cost-cutting efforts are a lot more popular with Republicans than Democrats, but polling suggests the division isn’t just one of partisanship. The DOGE is running up against fundamental disagreements over the role of government and the people who staff it—and the price people are willing to pay for a less-obnoxious government.

Corrupt and Inefficient Government, but Iffy Support for DOGE

Last year, Pew Research polling found that 56 percent of Americans say government is “almost always wasteful and inefficient.” The Babbie Centre at Chapman University reported that “nearly 2/3 of Americans fear that our government is run by corrupt officials.” And last month, A.P.-NORC researchers found 70 percent of Americans believe corruption is a major problem in the federal government, 65 percent say the same of inefficiency, and 59 percent see red tape—including regulations and bureaucracy—as a major problem.

Yet DOGE draws just a 39 percent “favorable” rating in the latest The Economist/YouGov poll, a bare three points ahead of “unfavorable” at 36 percent (25 percent picked “don’t know”). A poll this month from Trafalgar Group found 49 percent approving of the cost-cutting efforts of DOGE and Elon Musk, with 44 percent disapproving (7 percent were undecided). That’s more support than opposition in both cases, but you’d expect greater enthusiasm from a public that overwhelmingly considers government to be corrupt and wasteful (with plenty of evidence to support that position).

Part of the explanation, of course, is partisanship. Anything done by officials from one of the major parties is bound to be booed by the opposition, no matter what. As Gallup’s Jeffrey M. Jones pointed out in 2022, “generally speaking, Republicans and Democrats are more inclined to say the government has too much power when the president is from the other party, and less inclined when a president from their own party is in the White House.” That tribalism likely extends to cutting government as well, even if the cuts apply to agencies controlled for the moment by political enemies. Sure enough, both Trafalgar and The Economist/YouGov found far greater support for DOGE among Republicans than among Democrats (independents split the difference).

Democrats Want More Government, Flaws and All

But there are also real differences in attitudes toward the role of the state. The same Pew poll that reported widespread belief in the wastefulness and inefficiency of government also found that 49 percent of respondents “would prefer a smaller government providing fewer services” while 48 percent “would rather have a bigger government providing more services.” And the partisan divide here isn’t just tribal, it’s ideological. Despite fluctuations depending on who is in power, Republicans have overwhelmingly favored a smaller government providing fewer services since polling on the issue began in 1976 (support for bigger government peaked among them at about one-third in 1988 and 2004). Democratic support for larger, more active government grew from 49 percent in 1976 to 74 percent now.

Democrats in the A.P.-NORC poll were just slightly kinder than Republicans in their opinions on government corruption, efficiency, and red tape; majorities agree the federal government is corrupt and inefficient, while a 47 percent plurality says that red tape is a major problem. Given the overwhelming belief that government is corrupt and wasteful, but iffy support for DOGE, it’s fair to conclude that at least some Democrats are willing to put up with those concerns as the price of a larger state.

Partisan disagreement over the role of government also applies to trust in the people who staff the federal bureaucracy. These are the people the Trump administration offered buyouts and seeks to reduce in number, much like the Clinton administration did in the 1990s. Support for reducing the federal workforce depends, to a large extent, on agreement that those workers are part of the problem—or at least that we’d be better off with fewer of them. That’s not a universal opinion.

“Just 38% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents express a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in federal career employees,” Pew Research noted last week. That’s down 10 points from 2018. “In contrast, 72% of Democrats and Democratic leaners say they have confidence in career government employees – 7 points higher than in 2022, but on par with 2018 levels.”

So, if we’re to believe what members of the public tell researchers, majorities of Americans across partisan divides think the federal government is corrupt and inefficient. But a fair number of those who hold this position—Democrats, in particular—are confident that the people employed by the federal government aren’t responsible for that corruption and efficiency. Those problems appear from somewhere, perhaps as a miasma emanating from the swamp that D.C. was in years past. Also, many of those concerned that corruption and inefficiency plague the government are willing to put up with those handicaps so that the corrupt and inefficient government can play a larger role in our lives.

Republicans Also Want Their Expensive Goodies

Of course, consistency and logic aren’t necessarily common features of public opinion. As I’ve noted before, Republicans and Democrats may disagree when it comes to broad philosophical statements about the size and role of government, but when it comes to specifics, there’s more that unites them than divides them. Majorities of partisans of both parties as well as of independents want more federal spending on Social Security, Education, and Medicare, according to A.P.-NORC. A majority of Democrats also want more to be spent on Medicaid and assistance to the poor, while a majority of Republicans similarly want more dedicated to border security and the military.

Social Security is almost a quarter of federal spending all by itself, while Medicare, Medicaid, and other health care are slightly more, by the Cato Institute’s reckoning. National defense is about 13 percent, as is income security, with interest on federal debt right behind. DOGE faces quite an uphill battle to succeed in its mission to slash the size and cost of federal government.

DOGE faces obstacles from Democrats who recognize that the government is corrupt and inefficient but want more of it anyway. It also faces a challenge in Republicans and independents who say they want less government but don’t want to surrender their favorite boondoggles.

Americans are lukewarm about DOGE because they’re torn about its mission. Sure, they have a low opinion of the federal government, but they might be willing to put up with its deep flaws so long as it delivers their goodies.

J.D. Tuccille

From the Fraser Institute

By Steven Globerman

Canada Needs to Save Much More to Finance an Ambitious Investment Agenda

To meet Ottawa’s ambitious new housing construction targets in order to restore affordability, the country needs more than $300 billion in additional financing every year from 2025 to 2030, finds a new report published today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.

“To increase home building and restore business investment in key areas like technology to previous levels, Canada needs to become much more attractive to investors, both from within Canada and around the world,” said Steven Globerman, Fraser Institute senior fellow and author of Canada Needs to Save Much More to Finance an Ambitious Investment Agenda.

To restore housing affordability, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), a Crown Corporation of the federal government, has estimated that about 3.5 million additional housing units need to be built by 2030 given expected construction rates.

The study finds that for the federal government to meet this housing construction goal, an estimated $331 to $364 billion in additional financing is needed annually from 2025-2030.

If business investment in key areas such as communications and IT are to return to previous levels, another roughly $13 billion is needed annually.

In total, this means Canada needs an additional $343 to $377 billion in financing annually over the next five years. To put this into perspective, this is equivalent to increasing the current Canadian savings rate by 50 per cent.

One option to mitigate the need for a drastic increase in the domestic savings rate is to attract more foreign investment, but that will require substantial policy reforms to make Canada a more attractive environment for foreign investors.

“It is very likely that the ambitious targets that have been set for homebuilding and business investment won’t be met, but even so, encouraging increased investment and higher domestic savings is a worthy policy pursuit,” Globerman said.

• Both the Canadian government and policymakers from various organizations including the Bank of Canada have called for ambitious programs to increase capital investment in Canada, particularly investment focused on residential housing and productivity-enhancing business assets.
• The ambitious domestic investment agenda will require a substantial increase in domestic savings in order to finance the necessary increased capital expenditure. The requisite increase has been largely ignored, to date, in policy proposals and surrounding discussion of those proposals.
• The financial capital required to fund major investments in residential housing and even modest increases in business investment will require an increase in the domestic savings rate of as much as 50 percent. Alternatively, much larger inflows of long-term foreign capital investments into Canada beyond what has been realized over the past few decades will be required.
• Such large increases in the domestic savings rate and in foreign capital inflows would require unrealistic and unsustainably high real interest rates. The implication is that the federal government’s investment goals, especially with regard to increasing the supply of residential housing, are unrealizable over the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, implementing policies to encourage increased domestic savings and channeling those savings into high priority investment activities should be a public policy imperative.

Read The Full Report

Steven Globerman

Senior Fellow and Addington Chair in Measurement, Fraser Institute