August 2, 2011 4:18PM # A Turning Point? By [John Samples](https://www.cato.org/people/john-samples) --- SHARE [Greg Sargent cites a *CNN* poll question](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/republicans-winning-the-larger-argument-over-government/2011/03/03/gIQAnVtupI_blog.html): > As you may know, the agreement would cut about one trillion dollars in government spending over the next ten years with provisions to make additional spending cuts in the future. Regardless of how you feel about the overall agreement, do you approve or disapprove of the cuts in government spending included in the debt ceiling agreement? > Approve 65 > Disapprove 30 Sargent continues: Sixty five percent approve of deal’s spending cuts. But it gets worse. Of the 30 percent who disapprove, 13 percent think the cuts haven’t gotten far enough, and *only 15 percent think the cuts go too fa*r. One sixth of Americans agree with the liberal argument about the deal. About 20 percent of Americans self-identify as liberals. This would suggest that all non-liberal Americans and one-fourth of self-identifying liberals approve of the deal or think the cuts have not gone far enough. It could also mean that some non-liberal Americans disapprove of the deal and *more* than one-quarter of liberals approve of it. Either interpretation will not encourage those who believe government should be larger. Still, the political agenda is defined as cuts, and the public seems willing to go along. 2008 seems like a generation ago. ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).