House Budget Committee: The Republican Budget Opportunity (via Gingrich360)

February 6, 2025

The Winston Group’s recent survey numbers, in Newt Gingrich’s recent column, cited today by the US House Committee on the Budget:

In a recent column published on Gingrich 360, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich writes about the massive opportunity ahead to cut waste from the federal budget. With a Trump-Vance Administration that is prioritizing reforms to make government work more efficiently, Republicans in the 119^th Congress are uniquely positioned to right-size the bloated federal bureaucracy and restore fiscal sanity to Washington.

Word on the Street:

Speaker Newt Gingrich, Via Gingrich 360:

President Donald J. Trump and the Republicans have an enormous opportunity to get government spending under control, cut waste and fraud from our health care system, and move toward a balanced budget.

…The Winston Group made a series of important findings after running focus groups and a survey of 1,200 registered voters in January:

Inflation was the construct by which people viewed the economy and taxes. As a result, the most important personal outcome from tax policy was helping you deal with inflation and high prices in your household budget (mean 7.52 on a scale of 1-9 with 1 being not important at all and 9 extremely important), followed by creating economic growth (7.39) and greater ability to save for the future and retirement (7.38).

In terms of debt solutions, spending cuts and tax increases are not on equal footing. Voters want government spending to be addressed first, as they do not believe they should be penalized for the government’s overspending. As one voter in our focus groups said, ‘The government needs to look at its own spending. That’s the common denominator here. Every single year they are in a deficit. … It’s not the taxpayers’ burden anymore. We’re the ones giving them the money, and they are the ones not handling it correctly.’ Voters have not ruled out tax increases, but this is seen as a last resort rather than first option, creating an uphill battle for proponents of tax increases.

In a direct choice, government spending was overwhelmingly seen as a bigger problem (76%) than not enough revenue coming in from taxes (16%). This is the case across party (Republicans: 89-7; Independents 77-15; Democrats 63-27).